Poems as Prayers: Writing Toward a Just World with Caits Meissner

Six Wednesdays, June 12–July 24
(skipping July 3)

Have you ever discovered that a detail you’d once magically, unwittingly predicted in a poem became suddenly true? In this generative workshop, we’ll strive to harness that same mystical energy to write our collective future into existence—through poetry.

Inspiration will be mined from movement workers, social change influencers, the inherent genius of nature’s patterns, the starfish’s regenerative limb! We’ll cast hope into the universe through ritual, spellmaking, disruption, and interactive poem-experiments—guided by a motley crew of visionary writers and thinkers such as adrienne maree brown, Otto Scharmer, prison abolitionists, ecopoets, Fanny Howe, Yoko Ono, Octavia Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, CA Conrad, Matthew Olzmann, Eve Ewing, Ross Gay, and many more.

Class Dates:
Wednesday, June 12, 6-8:30pm
Wednesday, June 19, 6-8:30pm
Wednesday, June 26, 6-8:30pm
Wednesday, July 10, 6-8:30pm
Wednesday, July 17, 6-8:30pm
Wednesday, July 24, 6-8:30pm

Caits Meissner is a DIY-spirited, poly-creative writer, artist, and cultural worker. She is the author of the illustrated hybrid poetry book Let It Die Hungry (The Operating System, 2016), and her poems, essays, and literary comix have been published in The Guardian, The Literary Review, Narrative, Adroit, Drunken Boat, The Rumpus, VIDA Literary Review, The Feminist Wire, The Normal School, Poetry magazine’s Harriet blog and The Offing, among many others. In 2010 she released the wolf & me, an album that Okayplayer named “an impressive blend of poetry, singing and stellar production that takes on a variety of complexions.” Erykah Badu called her blend of poetry and music “fresh, honest and loving,” with “a delicate heart like mine.” With an extensive history in teaching and facilitating community arts programs, Caits currently serves as Director of the Prison & Justice Writing Program at PEN America.

Registration Deadline: Friday, June 7