Queer Bodies/Queer Forms: Leaving Behind the Retrograde - A Six-Week Online Writing Workshop with Corporeal Writers
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From Corporeal Writers:
Cooper Lee Bombardier says: “To me, queer is expansive, queer is hybrid, queer is taking what works and leaves behind the retrograde.” Yes, for many queer is also an identity but you don’t have to identify as queer to benefit from a look at queer forms, or attempting to queer your own work. We’ll look at work that might be considered queer in content as well as form, and will embark on multiple generative writing “experiments” where we try on the forms and constraints studied, enter into conversation with them, become inspired by them, apply them to our own creative voices, and invent our own forms. Many powerful new texts that defy categorization and genre are now being published. Hybrid forms, constraint- based writings, fragmentary texts, “self-theory,” prose poetry, repetition, “cut-ups,” lyric essays, and many other slippery forms are gaining critical attention in contemporary literature. In this workshop we will explore a selective swath of some of these exciting texts and examine their ability to capture and convey experience through these forms—examples of fragmentary literary work from Sappho to Joe Brainard; recent texts that exemplify the zeitgeist, including Roxane Gay, Matias Viegener, Lidia Yuknavitch, Maggie Nelson, Claudia Rankine, Brian Blanchfield. Cooper will encourage people to avail themselves of the small temporary writing community at hand and to discuss with each other, as we’ll as give comments to others. Each week a new written mini lesson is posted that includes a discussion and a writing prompt, or “experiment.” We will expand one “experiment” into a polished piece. Engagement w/ this intimate temporary writing community—participating in discussions and giving one another support and feedback—is essential.