Bilingual Poetry Workshop with Silvina López Medin (via Zoom)

This four-week workshop will meet on Tuesdays, 6:30-8:30 PM ET on Zoom, from June 4 through June 25.

Description in English: Over the course of this four-week workshop, we will read poems by 4 Latin American poets: Elvira Hernández (tr. Alec Schumacher), Liliana Ponce (tr. Michael Martin Shea), Miyó Vestrini (tr. Anne Boyer & Cassandra Gillig), and Soleida Ríos (tr. Barbara Jamison & Olivia Lott). We will observe the formal elements of each poet’s work, and pay attention to which aspects resonate with the participants as they generate their own writing. The workshop aims to build a shared space that encourages reading the poems bilingually, considering what sets our writing in motion, how our poems move from first to last line, what tools might help us keep our creative processes going. While conducted mostly in Spanish, participants need not be completely fluent to join. Readings will be bilingual, and the instructor is bilingual and can assist with any difficult language. This workshop hopes to leave space for work in between and across the two languages (Spanish-English). Most of our time together will be devoted to workshopping the participants’ own poems.

Descripción en español: En este taller leeremos poemas de 4 poetas latinoamericanas: Elvira Hernández (tr. Alec Schumacher), Liliana Ponce (tr. Michael Martin Shea), Miyó Vestrini (tr. Anne Boyer & Cassandra Gillig), and Soleida Ríos (tr. Barbara Jamison & Olivia Lott). Observaremos los elementos formales de sus textos y qué aspectos resuenan en lxs participantes mientras generan sus propios poemas. El taller apunta a construir un espacio conjunto que incentive la lectura de poemas en ediciones bilingües, y en el que pensaremos cómo poner nuestra escritura en movimiento, cómo se mueven nuestros poemas desde el primer verso hasta el último, qué herramientas nos pueden ayudar a sostener nuestros procesos creativos. El taller será principalmente en español, pero lxs participantes no necesitan hablar español fluido. Las lecturas serán bilingües, la coordinadora del taller es bilingüe y podrá ayudar con cualquier dificultad de lenguaje. Este taller apunta a abrir un espacio para la escritura en una u otra lengua y/o entre lenguas (español-inglés). La mayor parte del tiempo estará dedicado a los poemas de lxs propixs participantes.

NB: This class will be taught on Zoom and will be capped at 15 students. Registrants will receive the Zoom link to the email address they use to register. It will arrive immediately after registration so please check your spam folder if you do not receive it. It will also be sent the day before class as a reminder. Please review the course policies page before registering for any classes. Please email misty@writerscenter.org with any questions.

All HVWC scholarship applications will be available on May 1 and will be due on May 15 for all summer/fall 2024 classes.

Silvina López Medin was born in Buenos Aires and lives in Croton on Hudson, New York. She has published five books of poetry including La noche de los bueyes (Loewe Foundation International Young Poetry Prize), 62 brazadas (City of Buenos Aires Poetry Prize), That Salt on the Tongue to Say Mangrove (tr. Jasmine V. Bailey, Carnegie Mellon University Press), and the chapbook Excursion (selected by Mary Jo Bang as the winner of the Oversound Prize). Her hybrid poetry book Poem That Never Ends was a winner of the Essay Press Book Contest. She co-translated Anne Carson’s Eros the Bittersweet and Robert Hass’s Home Movies into Spanish. Her writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Hyperallergic, Poetry Foundation, Lit Hub and MoMA/post, among others. She currently teaches poetry in the Writing Program at Pratt Institute, and in the Spanish Creative Writing MFA at NYU, where she is a Writer in Residence. She is an editor at Ugly Duckling Presse. www.silvinalopezmedin.com