Poetry as Resistance [DA Powell]

Poems are deviant, nonstandard, subversive, and built on layers of meaning, both visible and hidden. Even a poem that exhibits regular form can hold within its body subtle avoidances, competing rhetoric, threads of unconventional or surprising language, and an undermining of convention—even as it presents a familiar pattern on the surface. We’ll look at some of the many ways in which poetry is a vehicle for social critique and change as well as a time-honored way to resist the ordinary and the obvious. Participants should bring a poem, pen, pad of paper, and a point of view.