Community Poetry Workshop

This is a two-part workshop with a 30-minute break in between.

Part 1 is from 3:30 to 4:30 pm

Break is from 4:30 to 5 pm

Part 2 is from 5:00 to 6:00 pm

Part 1: Self-Care Guide to Community Poetry (3:30 to 4:30)

Mindfulness, safe space/courageous space, embrace our mistakes, breathwork for stress or anxiety, release shame, embrace the humble, show up and write your truth (music warmups). Permissions (love and be yourself), self-care, self-nurturing, connecting, and honoring our internal child. Drawing warmups. Poetry from our experiences. Finally…an exquisite corps.

Part 2: Community Poetry: Community (5 to 6)

Mindfulness, safe space/courageous space, how to speak your truth/vocal warmups. Warm-ups will begin with ourselves, then expand to listening skills and note-taking, then vocal warmups, then continue to expand through the process of communication and note-taking through interviews, finally, we will come together as a whole and present our work together through our work and through a community-building game while speaking through the act of poetry.

About Gina Duran

As an artist, poet, and educator with a focus on marginalized youth. Gina Duran is the founder of the IE Hope Collective; an outreach that helps people living on the streets and in shelters, and provides poetry, art, and yoga workshops for low-income, homeless, foster, refugee, and LGBTQ2+ youth. She was the Guest Editor of Boundless 2022, of The Rio Grande Valley International Poetry Festival, and is currently the DJ/Host for The Collective on KQBH LA. Her first collection of poetry “…and so, the Wind was Born,” was published in 2021 by FlowerSong Press and is a part of the Her Story Mixed Tape collection in the archives of the Autry Museum of the American West, in LA. When she's not making art and building community, Duran is a first semester MFA Grad student at Antioch University (in LA) while she works as a Substitute teacher, Yoga Instructor, Massage Therapist, and youth program director. She feels art and community can and will lead to positive change.

The workshop costs $10 to attend. Proceeds will go to the workshop facilitator and to support the Library. If payment is a barrier, you're welcome to attend for free.

We also have a pay-what-you can and a pay-it-forward tier.

If you have any questions, feel free to email [email protected]

We can't wait to see you here!

Host or Publisher Sims Library of Poetry