Just a quick note today to invite you to a virtual writing workshop called A Poetics of Birth. I will be facilitating this workshop on Saturday, November 22nd, from 1-4 pm est.
A Poetics of Birth is a virtual writing workshop exploring the birth stories we carry from various poetic angles. This generative workshop will include (optional) story sharing, somatic exercises, generative writing prompts, and the opportunity to share new work with light feedback / workshopping from the cohort. We will seek to generate numerous first drafts of poems or short prose over the course of the workshop.
This writing workshop is open to parents and birth workers, and will focus on lived experiences of labor and birth. It does not matter how recent your birth was — parents and birth workers at any age or stage are welcome. You do not have to be an experienced writer to participate. All are welcome if you are willing to dive in! The only prerequisite is a lived experience of birth either as a parent, a partner or support person, or a birth worker.
I’m really excited about this workshop — I’ve been planning it very carefully and thinking about this format for years! I can’t wait to offer it for the first time this fall and see how it unfolds outside my brain. I have done a lot of personal writing about birth, and birth appears in much of my published poetry as well (Broken Waters was written throughout my first pregnancy and birth, and I have a new poetry manuscript in the pipeline written throughout my first four years of motherhood). For me, birth is such a generative subject for writing. I feel that birth is an inherently poetic life experience — so intense, so set-apart and special, and yet so ordinary. We remember and mis-remember our births. We remain ourselves inside of birth as our life changes around us. We move past our boundaries, we explore unexplored terrain. We break apart. We endure extremity. We survive! So much there to write. Now, as a birth worker, I am feeling myself wanting to reconsider and re-write birth from a new perspective. Doing this writing in a safe and set-apart group space feels extra exciting to me. We can hold each other’s stories, reflect back what we hear and notice, and allow ourselves to be witnessed in the midst.
I hope to offer this workshop on a rolling basis (possibly quarterly?) — so if you are interested but can’t join this time, know that it will likely pop up again. It is capped at ten seats to ensure that sharing will be possible if desired, so sign up quickly if you are interested. Expect it to be a reflective, gentle, and generative space, almost like a mini-retreat. A special and set-apart way to check in with the birth stories that you carry around inside, and to draw parts of them out with tenderness and care. I’m so excited to see how it feels.
Have questions? Leave a comment or send me an email at amybornman@gmail.com. Would love to see you there. Any other writing workshops you’d be interested in participating in with me? I have a lot of ideas and hope this will only be the beginning! Let me know!
More soon,
Amy
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