“If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” –Audre Lorde

This workshop will focus on (Soma)tic poetry rituals designed for the Queer body. With over 200 anti-LGBTQ laws issued by USA lawmakers in 2016, a queer poetics is more essential than ever for harnessing our perceived threat to society and wielding it back into our poems to make our lives thrive. As queer poet Erica Kaufman says, “Thriving requires more than just survival.”

Poet CAConrad has successfully used (Soma)tic poetry rituals to overcome debilitating depression after the murder of his boyfriend Earth (aka Mark Holmes). He has also created writing rituals using the night sky to design homemade star constellations, another ritual to experience what the impact of hearing the word “drone” has on the human body, and many others from talking with trees, ghosts, translating Shakespeare’s sonnets with crystals, and coping with the destroyed wilderness of our planet.

The (Soma)tic rituals we work with during the week will help us see the creative viability in everything around us by creating a space of “extreme present” where being anything but present is next to impossible. We will also build personalized rituals for each participant, showing how we can find ways to find our poems in almost any situation or circumstance. As poet Alice Notely says, “Poetry’s so common hardly anyone can find it.” We will also discuss how poetry and their rituals help us end our alienation from our planet and from one another. Creative people are survivors and we will examine the important role of artists for the future health and happiness of our species.