High school sophomores, juniors and seniors are invited to apply for a poetry workshop led by award-winning poets Irène Mathieu and Valencia Robin. Learn more and apply below. Applications are due March 25, 2020.
Images courtesy of the poets
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
A free eight-hour workshop over four sessions for high school students interested in poetry writing. The workshop will focus on joy, gratitude, and other sources of power in poetry, particularly for students from marginalized backgrounds. This workshop will be led by award-winning poets Irène Mathieu and Valencia Robin.
Students who complete this workshop will be official New City Arts Poetry fellows. Additional perks of this workshop include:
An opportunity to perform work at a public reading hosted at Welcome Gallery
Career advice from two working poets
A free author headshot
Free dinner at each workshop
Support for this workshop is provided by Sarah and Grey McLean; the Virginia Center for the Book and the Changing the Narrative project at Virginia Humanities, part of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation's Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation initiative; the Westminster Benevolence Fund; and generous individuals who care about Charlottesville's young artists.
HOW TO APPLY
This workshop is open to Charlottesville-area high school students including but not limited to students of color, queer and nonbinary students, low-income students, immigrant students, and differently abled students. Applications are due by 11:59PM on March 25, 2020. To apply, fill out this form and send a writing sample (two pages or less) to lindsey@newcityarts.org.
ABOUT THE FACILITATORS
Irène Mathieu, MD is a pediatrician, writer, and author of three collections of poetry. Her most recent book, Grand Marronage (Switchback Books 2019) won Editor’s Choice for the Gatewood Prize and runner-up for the Northwestern/Cave Canem Book Prize. She is also the author of orogeny (Trembling Pillow Press 2017) won the Bob Kaufman Book Prize, and the galaxy of origins (dancing girl press 2014). A recipient of fellowships from Fulbright, Callaloo, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Irène practices primary care pediatrics at the University of Virginia, where she leads workshops on poetry and medicine for physicians in training and serves as an editor for Muzzle Magazine and the humanities’ section of The Journal of General Internal Medicine. For more information, please visit www.irenemathieu.com.
Valencia Robin’s first collection of poems, Ridiculous Light, won Persea Books’ 2018 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize. A visual artist as well as a poet, her poetry has appeared in the New York Times, TriQuarterly, Foundry, Black Renaissance Noire, and elsewhere. Says Diana Whitney of the San Francisco Chronicle about Ridiculous Light: “These are praise poems for a dark time, musical poems that conjure up stories, transcendent poems to give to your mother, your lover, your friends, yourself.” A Cave Canem Fellow, Valencia Robin holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia and an MFA in Art & Design from the University of Michigan. She currently lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. For more information, please see: valenciarobin.com.
