Midwinter Workshop 2024

Diving Into the Deep

Many times as poets, we get in the way of our process. I heard someone say to me once they have trouble finding the jumping-off point for the poem. Jumping off..as though we have created a cavern or a canyon that creates an impassable boundary between us and the first image of the poem. What's worse is once we make it to the other side, we're so elated or exhausted we forget to go back and do the real work of the poet..revision. In this interactive generative workshop, poet, teacher, and inaugural Dallas Poet Laureate, Joaquín Zihuatanejo, will guide us through prompts designed to get us to put pen to page. We will write, but more importantly, we will revise. Along the way, we will discuss methods to get out of the way of overthinking our diligence to our own process, which can lead to a block. Together, we will work to find the joy in not only pressing the pencil down hard as we craft the poem (so as to leave an impression on things we were not intending to impress) but to also find the joy that comes in questioning the poem, challenging the poem, and revising the poem. Not for the sake of doing battle with the poem, but rather for the sake of making peace with the poem. Sound intimidating? Trust us; it won't be. The award-winning poet whose last collection, Arsonist, won the Anhinga-Robert Dana Prize for Poetry as selected by Eduardo C. Corral, Joaquín Zihuatanejo, will be there to guide and instruct along the way.

About the Presenter

Joaquín Zihuatanejo is the proud descendant of immigrant field workers. In the last year, Joaquín was awarded a $20,000 honorarium by the city of Dallas and a $50,000 Laureate Fellowship Prize by the Academy of American Poets in honor of the good work he has done as the inaugural Dallas Poet Laureate.

The second sentence is not greater than the first. The second sentence would not be possible without the first.

Joaquín received his MFA in creative writing with a concentration in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Yellow Medicine Review, Sonora Review, Southwestern American Literature, and Huizache, among other journals and anthologies. His poetry has been featured on HBO, NBC, and on NPR in Historias and The National Teacher’s Initiative. Joaquín’s collection, Arsonist, was awarded the 2017 Anhinga-Robert Dana Prize for Poetry as selected by Eduardo C. Corral. Joaquín's forthcoming collection, Occupy Whiteness, is due out in February of 2024 from Deep Vellum Books. Joaquín has two passions in his life, his partner Aída and poetry. Always in that order.

Schedule (all times Central)

9:50-10  Welcome

10 - 12:30 Workshop with Joaquin Zihuatanejo

12:30 - 1:30 Round Robin Reading