Writing Inside the Circle, Listening Through Time

Writing Inside the Circle, Listening Through Time is a writing workshop led by let the circle be unbroken co-curator, W.J. Lofton, grounded in witnessing and radical imagination. We’ll write in a circle and reflect on revolutionary figures and their contributions to liberation movements, using poetry to connect with the past and imagine possible futures. Through guided prompts and open conversation, we’ll explore how writing can hold grief, joy, survival, and hope.

Participants are encouraged to bring journals and writing utensils.

W.J. Lofton is a Black Queer Southern poet and multimodal artist. He is the author of boy maybe and A Garden for Black Boys Between the Stages of Soil and Stardust. A recipient of Ava DuVernay’s LEAP Grant, Lofton is a Cave Canem, Obsidian Foundation, and Emory University Arts & Social Justice fellow. His poetry, essays, and film work have appeared in TIME, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, Obsidian, and Scalawag; in the books No Justice, No Peace and Prose to the People, and elsewhere. Lofton’s work reaches for liberation and its lived manifestations—the personal, political, and collective. He resides in Atlanta, Georgia, where he co-curates Rebellion: A Writing Salon at For Keeps Books.

Photo by Wulf Bradley