Adult Workshop with Phil Kaye

Imagined Pasts and Futures

Poetry can be an act of imagination as well as memory. In this workshop, we’ll explore how inventing alternate pasts and possible futures can help us see the present more clearly. What might it mean to reimagine the story of our youth, or to write toward who we have not yet become? By experimenting with these imagined timelines, we can open new poetic pathways—discovering fresh language, new perspectives on the self, and deeper ways of engaging with the world around us.

Through generative prompts, close readings, and conversation, participants will experiment with how imagined timelines can complicate memory, illuminate possibility, and unlock unexpected poetic doors.

Phil Kaye

Phil Kaye is a Japanese-American poet. His work has been featured in settings ranging from NPR to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and viewed millions of times online. He has performed his original work in eighteen countries and was invited to open for His Holiness The Dalai Lama for the celebration of his 80th birthday. He is the co-director of Project VOICE, an organization that partners with schools to bring poetry to the classroom. A former teacher of weekly poetry workshops in maximum security prisons, Phil was the head coordinator of Space in Prisons for the Arts and Creative Expression (SPACE). Phil is a National Poetry Slam finalist, and the two-time recipient of the National College Poetry Slam (CUPSI) award for “Pushing the Art Forward”, given for outstanding innovation in the art of live poetry. His book, Date &Time, was published in 2018 by Button Poetry.

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Open to ages 19+. Registration is required and space is limited.