Poetry as Witness

What does it mean for a poem to bear witness? In this generative workshop, participants will explore writing that responds to personal experience and collective events, inhabiting the space between the intimate and the political. Drawing on the concept of the “poetry of witness,” we will consider how poems can document, remember, and respond with care and craft. Through discussion and guided exercises, writers will experiment with shaping testimony into powerful poetic form.

 

Instructor: Rayanne Haines

Rayanne Haines is an award-winning hybrid author and pushcart nominated poet, producer and podcaster. She is the author of Tell The Birds Your Body Is Not A Gun (Frontenac House), winner of the 2022 Stephan G. Stephansson, Alberta Literary Award for Poetry and shortlisted for both the BPAA Robert Kroetsch Award, and the ReLit Award. She's also the author of the poetry collections The Stories in My Skin (2013), Stained with the Colours of Sunday Morning (Inanna, 2017), and now, What Kind of Daughter? (Frontenac House, 2024) a poetry and essay memoir exploring grief, identity, and gendered trauma. Rayanne served as the 2022 Writer in Residence for the Edmonton Region Federation of Libraries, is the recipient of an Edmonton Artist Trust Fund Award, host of the Crow Reads Podcast, President of the League of Canadian Poets, and an Assistant Professor at MacEwan University. She has been published in various anthologies and journals including the Globe and Mail, Minola Review, Fiddlehead, Grain, FreeFall, Prairie Fire and others.