Spoken Word Poetry for Healing & Expression

Spoken Word Poetry for Healing & Expression w/Ariana Brown

5 Tuesdays, June 2nd - 30th, 7-9pm UK via Zoom.

Plus closing showcase on July 4th, 7-9pm UK via Zoom.

Pricing:

Tickets are available at three price points, each with a 3-month payment plan option.

Accomplice Tickets are for those with some expendable income who would like to help fund a subsidised ticket.

General Admission represents the true cost of a course place.

Subsidised Tickets are for those who are unable to afford the GA ticket or payment plan. 

Accomplice: £285 (or 3 monthly instalments of £95)

General Admission: £225 (or 3 monthly instalments of £75)

Subsidised: £165 (or 3 monthly instalments of £55)

VIEW PAYMENT PLANS

Audre Lorde once wrote that “poetry is not a luxury” because it should belong to everyone, because writing poetry allows us to voice the radical hopes and desires we would otherwise be too scared to speak aloud. In a world designed to keep us complacent and quiet, poetry asks us to awaken our innermost feelings and express them. 

In this 5-week course, we will explore writing spoken word poetry as a collective liberatory practice. Building from Black feminist ideas central to Lorde’s work, we will use our time together to dream, write, and practice speaking our innermost thoughts and feelings aloud in poetic form. Each week will include generative writing exercises, reading and discussing 1-3 poems, and time to write and share. The course will culminate in a virtual closing showcase hosted by Ariana in which participants are encouraged to perform 1-2 spoken word poems they wrote in the class.

Though this is a generative poetry writing course, no prior experience writing or performing poetry is necessary, and writers of all backgrounds and experience levels are more than welcome. Everyone has a story within them; this course is designed as a pathway to unlocking creativity to free up space within ourselves, which strengthens our collective capacity for intellectual and movement work. Participants are encouraged to take good care of themselves as we practice reading, writing, and studying poetry, speaking our truths, and bearing witness to one another’s stories.

All class sessions will be recorded (without the sharing portion), but the closing showcase will not.

Weekly Outline

Week 1: Introduction to Writing Personal Poetry - This first session is dedicated to getting to know one another, setting intentions, journaling, and laying the groundwork for writing personal poetry in the weeks to come. Additional reading, discussion, and writing exercises may be provided.

Week 2: Poems as Blueprints for a Better World - If you could be an architect for a better world and there were no limits to what you could imagine, what would you build? We will read, study, and write manifesto poems that envision a liberated future.

Week 3: The Personal Poem, the Political Poem - If you believe, as many feminists do, that “the personal is political,” what does that mean for the poetry you write? This week we will read, study, and write poems all about you and what you believe.

Week 4: Who Are Your People? Who Do You Love? - In the work you do, in the movements we seek to build, who are you bringing with you? Who are you fighting for and alongside? This week we will read, study, and write poems about the kind of love that has the power to transform our communities.

Week 5: Performing Poetry: On Bravery, Reciprocity, & Witnessing - Sharing personal poetry is a brave act. In this final class session, Ariana will guide participants through ethical, holistic approaches to performing and witnessing each other’s poems as a mode of community building. Participants will be given time to reflect, journal, ask questions, and practice sharing their work aloud.

Closing Showcase - It wouldn’t be spoken word poetry without one big performance! This course will close with a celebratory showcase hosted by Ariana, in which participants are encouraged to perform 1-2 poems they wrote in this class while supporting and cheering for one another. Participants’ friends and loved ones are welcome to attend the showcase.

This course is ideal for…

• Writers of all backgrounds and experience levels interested in reading and writing spoken word poetry

• Writers interested in social justice

• Writers who are ready to write personal poetry and are prepared to care for themselves through the process

• People who are afraid to call themselves “writers” or “poets”

• People who want to connect with other people interested in poetry

• Writers interested in engaging in reciprocity by sharing their writing aloud at least once during the course

This course is not ideal for…

• Writers who believe poetry has to sound and look a certain way

• Participants seeking therapeutic help to write about traumatic experiences

• Participants who do not want to share their writing aloud with others

Access/Care Agreements & System Requirements

• We are all responsible for ourselves and the words we say.

• We all have the agency to care for ourselves, to step away when we need a moment, and to ask for help.

• Ariana is a trained poet and educator, not a therapist. Ariana has taken great care to not include prompts, exercises, or readings that are intentionally shocking or triggering, though we may not know what triggers an intense emotional reaction until it is happening. Participants are encouraged to trust their own instincts, take breaks, and resource themselves before, during, and after writing/sharing sessions.

• There is no “homework” for this class, though students may want to continue working on the poems they started writing in class outside of class.

• You will need a laptop with Internet to access workshop material and live meetings. It is highly recommended for students to use headphones when attending classes for best audio quality.

• All class materials will be provided and stored via Google Classroom, which allows for email notifications when new material is added and an event is coming up.

• All live events take place on Zoom. Please make sure you have downloaded the latest version of Zoom prior to the first class session.

• Automated captions generated by Zoom are available for all class sessions, including the closing showcase.

• All class sessions will be recorded (without the sharing portion), but the closing showcase will not. This is to protect the emotional safety and intellectual property of all participants. All participants will receive access to workshop materials such as readings and prompts.

• All of Ariana Brown's classes have a strict anti-harassment policy. Students who cause harm (such as racism, transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, etc.) to other students, the instructor, or the learning environment may be removed from the class without a refund.

• Access Limitations: Ariana cannot currently offer free tuition, scholarships, ASL interpretation, CART captions, 1-on-1 workshops, or multilingual translation services. Ariana cannot guarantee extremely high audio quality without disturbances, slow speaking, or 24/7 email responses due to her own access needs and budget limitations.

About the Facilitator

Ariana Brown is a queer Black Mexican American poet, teacher and librarian from San Antonio, TX, now based in Houston. She is the author of the poetry collections We Are Owed. (Grieveland, 2021) and Sana Sana (Game Over Books, 2020). Her academic and poetic works explore queerness, Black personhood in Mexican American spaces, girlhood, loneliness, and care. Ariana is a national collegiate poetry slam champion, winner of two Academy of American Poets Prizes, and a recipient of a National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Grant.

She holds a BA in African Diaspora Studies and Mexican American Studies from UT Austin, an MFA in Poetry from the University of Pittsburgh, and an MS in Library and Information Science from the University of North Texas. She currently develops ethnic studies and ELA curriculum for high schools and colleges and teaches creative writing to teens in Houston. Ariana has been writing, performing, and teaching for over a decade.

Learn more about Ariana's teaching philosophy.

Refund & Cancellation Policy:

No refunds or cancellations will be possible for this course. If you have questions or concerns about this, please contact kr@neuroqueercreative.com before booking.

We reserve the right to cancel the course if we do not meet a minimum number of registrants. In this instance, all tickets will be fully refunded, minus payment processing fees.