Poetry/Spoken Word: Writing Joy and Beauty through Difficult Times with Daemond Arrindell (BIPOC Only)

Posted on September 15, 2021

This will be the first time Freehold Theatre has hosted a class specifically for Black, Indigenous, Brown and Asian participants (BBIA) and I am very excited by this opportunity to intentionally craft a space for creativity for frank and challenging conversations and potentially for healing.

The focus of the class goes beyond the traditional spoken word classes I have facilitated in the past which were focused simply on the craft of writing poetry and combined with the art of performance. In this series we will be centered on the concepts of Joy and Beauty. And when you identify as a person of color or a person of the global majority in the US, it means that you live with some form or forms of oppression. That tends to skew trajectories away from dreams and more towards survival. But if you look at most social movements of the past, you will find art, and beauty and joy as integral parts of the struggle.

All of this is to say, Joy and Beauty are survival tools.

Lucille Clifton said it best in her poem, “won’t you celebrate with me,”

come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

This class will look at the complex nature and intersectionality of the concepts of Joy and Beauty through the work of Black artists and use their examples as inspiration for our own writing and performance.

All levels of writers and performers are welcome. In this class, we will build “courageous space” for each participant to learn and grow – from the work, from each other, and through each other. It will be supportive and respectful of all identities.

“We need new words for what this is, this hunger entering our loneliness like birds, stunning our eyes into rays of hope. we need the flutter that can save us, something that will swirl across the face of what we have become and bring us grace.” ~ Lucille Clifton