Adult Workshop with Sarah Kay

Getting Closer by Moving Farther Away

“Nothing rocket ships you farther faster than a sleek image plucked from your ample arsenal, no armor thicker than pointing your poetry finger & yelling, Look over there!” Sometimes metaphors and similes facilitate escape, by giving poets language-layers to hide behind, especially when it feels too difficult to say it plain. It can be a relief to create distance in the form of figurative language. But what if we tried to use metaphor to get closer to what is true? In this generative workshop, we will examine and discuss contemporary poems that use metaphor to get closer to what is true, and experiment with persona poems that allow us to get closer to what is you. 

Sarah Kay

Sarah Kay is a writer, performer, and educator from New York City. She is best known for her talk at the 2011 TED conference, which garnered two standing ovations and ha sbeen seen over thirteen million times online. Sarah has shared her poems in cornfields in Iowa, an orthodontist office in Nepal, a viking ship on a fjord in Norway, a nightclub in Singapore, the Royal Danish Theater in Denmark, Carnegie Hall in New York City, the Kennedy Center in DC, the back rooms of dive-bars, middle school gymnasiums, and once on top of someone’s dining room table. Her poetry can be found on Netflix tv shows, Uniqlo t-shirts, and bookstore shelves. She is the author of four best-selling books of poetry including “B,” “The Type,” “No Matter the Wreckage,” and “All Our Wild Wonder.” Sarah holds a Masters Degree in The Art of Teaching from Brown University and an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Grinnell College. She is the founder and co-director of Project VOICE, an organization that uses spoken word poetry to entertain, educate, and inspire students and teachers worldwide.

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