PSNY Virtual Workshop: Talk to Me

An all-levels generative virtual workshop with poet Chelsea Rae Mize!

Every poem is in dialogue with something or someone -- and I love to chat. For this workshop, I'm particularly interested in how poets use other people's words to shape their own conversations, ideas, and creative work. Whether in a cento, an epigraph, or a casual reference, the words of the past inform and enliven the words of the present. I find other words to be a vital well of inspiration, whether it's using my Wordle guesses to write poetry or drawing on strangers' poems, prose, or dialogue. For this workshop, I want to delve into some good examples of works borrowing or quoting from other works. Then I'd like to invite students to choose a source of their own -- a headline, a word game, a snippet of eavesdropped conversation, or another piece of writing - and compose a work that pays tribute to someone else's... something. It's important, now as ever, to engage with other writers past and present, for the sake of the future.

About the Instructor: Chelsea Rae Mize (she/her) is a poet and screenwriter living in New York. She wrote her first story when she was six, called “My World: The Life of a Cat.” It was a tragedy. Then a bunch of other stuff happened, she went to Duke, moved to LA, then eventually to New York. That whole time, she’s kept writing, and she’s also done many other odd jobs too. Like what, you ask? Oh you know, interviewing plastic surgeons, working as an online matchmaker, teaching yoga to children, that kinda thing. She’s sold scripts to CBS, Nickelodeon, Sony, and some other places. She spent two years writing a poem every day based on her Wordle guesses (and getting other people to do it too!) because poetry can be funny and weird and everyone has at least one poem in them, even if they don’t think so. She also makes poetry and art zines and leaves them around the city in surprising places… maybe you’ll find one.

**This workshop will take place on Zoom.**