PSNY Virtual Workshop: Self, Address Yourself

With poet Ayokunle Falomo!

Over the course of our time together in this workshop, we’ll look at poems (by Ocean Vuong, Bernadette Mayer, Agha Shahid Ali, and Wanda Coleman, among others) that address the author, sometimes directly—by name. Because it’s true that often the loudest voices in our heads are not even ours, we’ll attempt to rid ourselves of lies we might have believed about ourselves and perhaps arrive, individually, at an answer to this question: What true thing might you say to yourself now that you’re the only one in the room? We’ll draw additional inspiration from questions posed by Bhanu Kapil and Audre Lorde.

About the Instructor: AYOKUNLE FALOMO is Nigerian, American, and the author of Autobiomythography of (Alice James Books, 2024), AFRICANAMERICAN’T (FlowerSong Press, 2022—finalist for Texas Institute of Letters' Helen C. Smith Memorial Award for Best Book of Poetry), two self-published collections and African, American (New Delta Review, 2019; selected by Selah Saterstrom as the winner of New Delta Review’s 8th annual chapbook contest). A recipient of fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, MacDowell, and the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program, where he obtained his MFA in Creative Writing—Poetry, his work has been anthologized and widely published.

* *This workshop will take place on Zoom.**

Host or Publisher The Poetry Society of New York