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Writing the Threshold: Poetry in Transitional Spaces
w/Ian Ellasante

Thursdays: 4/25, 5/2, 5/16, 5/23, and 5/30
6-7:30 p.m.
Cost: $65
For more information please email casakeepers@casalibre.org
To register mail in your check and registration form

Workshop Description:

In this workshop, we will explore the concept of liminality, the occupation of transitional or middle spaces. Gloria Anzaludúa terms such spaces nepantla and we’ll delve deep into it to uncover the ways that we are all, at various points or perpetually, nepantler@s or liminars: whether queer, transgender, bi-cultural, of blended ethnicities, and/or on the verge of a new chapter in some small or large aspect of life. We will discuss the disorienting ambiguity and alienation often present in the middle spaces we occupy, but we’ll focus more on the freedom and unique potential that exists there. In identifying our past or present middle spaces, we will privilege these positions and find out how to mine them for their tremendous creative possibilities. We’ll look at a variety of ways liminality is expressed in poetry, particularly in works by queer poets and poets of color. Though there will be weekly take-home writing exercises and workshops, you are also welcome to bring poems you’ve already begun. 

Teacher Bio

Ian Ellasante is a transgender poet and artist of African, Choctaw, and European descent. Originally from Memphis, Ian studied Creative Writing and Sociology at the University of Memphis before moving to Tucson in 2007. He is currently completing his MA in American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona and finalizing a creative thesis consisting of his poetry and an expository introduction titled “Bridges Between Me: Liminality, Authenticity, and Re/integration in American Indian Literature.” Ian received the Native Writer Award in Poetry at the 2011 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference and has recently published poems in Currency and Evening Will Come.