Poetry Workshop: Malcolm Tariq

About This Camp & Activity

In her 1975 essay “Saving the Life That Is Your Own: The Importance of Models in the Artist Life” - collected in her volume, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983) - Alice Walker says:What is always needed in the appreciation of art, or life, is the larger perspective. Connections made, or at least attempted, where none existed before, the straining to encompass in one’s glance at the varied world the common thread, the unifying theme through immense diversity, a fearlessness of growth, of search, of looking, that enlarges the private and the public world. And yet, in our particular society, it is the narrowed and narrowing view of life that often wins.”Walker goes on to discuss the importance of reaching outside of her own experiences and life story to create art. But her words here also say a lot about what it means to practice history. In this sense, history is more than pure documentation - it requires interpretation and reframing. She is calling for different ways of seeing to render new narratives, or those that are often missed by the “narrowed and narrowing view of life.”How do we go about seeing in ways we have not before? How do we go about reaching a sight unseen? How can a poem carry the weight of practicing history? This seminar uses docupoetry as a spine to answer these questions. Often considered socially engaged poetry that converges with journalism, docupoetry can be anchored by such sources as oral history, photographs, court records, and legal documents. Studying the documentary work of C. D. Wright, Courtney Faye Taylor, M. NourbSe Philip alongside the narratives of reframing family histories in the work of Natasha Trethewey and Lauren Russell, participants will work with historical and personal artifacts to uncover deeper meaning and new understandings to get at Walker’s emphasis on “the larger perspective.” Poets are encouraged to bring historical items (news stories, will and testaments, photographs, speeches, legal documents) to further investigate historical moments or their choosing, or family histories.