Workshop
THE POWER OF PEN AND INK
The Power of Pen and Ink: A haiku/senryu workshop focusing on social justice, peace, and change.
During this engaging weekend workshop, the participants will be examining various past methods and examples citizen-poets have incorporated to foster change in a world that can be sometimes hostile and unfair. What can a single poet do? Come to the workshop and find out!
Poetry doesn’t have to be political, but it inarguably has. We each have the power to do something, and this workshop will empower the attendees to utilize what they might already have in their hands ~ the power of the word ~ specifically the power found in pen and ink. It is Stanford’s belief that since people have been overstimulated and numbed by the ubiquitous bombardment of flashy big screens, the electronic presentation of words and meaning have become so ephemeral, they hinder their ability, trust, and respect to connect with others. As we have heard before, “less is more” and this is where we gain our power of the written word. In a society that has a challenge focusing, modern haiku and senryu have the ability to stop the reader, connect, and make some sort of meaningful impression.
This workshop will address the current socio/economic/political conditions and is scheduled before the upcoming mid-term elections. Participants will gain some new skills to have in their toolbox and be able to use them immediately in the face of a very turbulent November.
Handouts will be distributed to all participants. Participants will be asked to bring 2 or 3 of their local newspapers and current news magazines to the workshop as well as their energy for change.
The workshop will close on Sunday morning with a reading of what the participants have written over the weekend. Afterwards, each participant will receive in the mail, a tiny side-stapled anthology edited by Stanford featuring some of the poems written over the weekend.
Limited to 10 participants.
Stanford M. Forrester is editor emeritus and founder of bottle rockets: a collection of short verse which he continuously edited for over 25 years. He is past president of the Haiku Society of America and has been invited to read and present in many countries and venues.
Stanford has always been an activist of sorts. He served his country as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador, leaving for the Andean mountains just two weeks after graduating college. He has also worked on farms in the Dominican Republic, as well as, serving his local community in various grass roots projects. He is incapable of staying silent or still.