​Standing on the Page: Poetics of Embodiment

Wednesday evenings, 4:30 - 6:30pm
May 9 - 30, 2018
with Tessa Micaela

Where and how does language move through, from and towards the body? Four weeks of poems, writing practices, somatic engagement, and conversation.

This class is designed to move participants through embodied writing practices. We will begin with the premise that all experiences traverse one or more bodies, be those singular, collective, familial, socio-political, historical, fragmented, (dis)inhabited, etc.

We will use poems, letters, writing prompts, structured forms, movement activities, and conversations towards these questions: where does language live in the body? What are the limits and extensions of that language and that body? Where and with what sounds is the body defended or ignored?

Writers and inspiration for this class will come from Maggie Nelson, Claudia Rankine, Climbing Poetree, CA Conrad, Dawn Lundy Martin, and Jordan Scott, among others.

We will produce several written pieces, and share them with each other. Please come ready to write, and to let go of writing as a precious act.

Sliding Scale: $90 - 150
Preregister by April 20th to [email protected]


Tessa Micaela is a poet, educator, student midwife, community herbalist, and quiet firecracker. Tessa is the author of there are boxes and there is wanting (Trembling Pillow Press, 2016) and the chapbook Crude Matter (ypolita press, 2016). Other writing has appeared in Make/shift, Dusie, Open House, Sink Review, Calamity and various other jars and corners. Tessa is an editor for HOLD: a journal.

Tessa's work is rooted in politicized somatic study and practice, collective liberation and healing, critical engagement with language; Tessa is committed to participating in and facilitating spaces that forefront tenderness and care.