Playing Within In-Between Spaces: The Exploration of the Prose and Poetry Hybrid with Shanta Lee (via Zoom)

While there still is debate about the mixing of genres, there are many authors who have and continue to boldly go into the area of hybridity inviting us as practitioners and readers to expand how we approach our craft.  As presented in the work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee,  Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric (which has appeared on both nonfiction and poetry lists), Tyehimba Jess’s Olio, and so many others, working in and with hybrid poses an inquiry: Are we wanted to break tradition, create something new or tap into what has been in existence as a bridge between prose and poetry?

Blurring the lines is seductive and within this masterclass, you are invited to play in the space of the blur between prose and poetry. We will engage some rules, but most importantly, this is about taking up the challenge and adventuring of embracing the blur.  This workshop is open to everyone across the prose and poetry landscape.

NB: This mixed-genre, generative workshop 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 Dec 1 and will be due on Dec 15 for all winter/spring 2024 classes.

Shanta Lee is an award winning artist who works in different mediums as a photographer, writer across genres, and a public intellectual. Shanta Lee is the author of the poetry collection, GHETTOCLAUSTROPHOBIA: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak Woman in Woke Tongues, winner of the 2020 Diode Editions full-length book prize and the 2021 Vermont Book Award. Her poetry collection illustrated by Alan Blackwell  interrogates,  interprets and converses with Ovid, Black Metamorphoses (Etruscan Press, 2023), has been named a finalist in the 2021 Hudson prize, shortlisted for the 2021 Cowles Poetry Book Prize and longlisted for the 2021 Idaho poetry prize. Shanta Lee’s forthcoming chapbook, This is How They Teach You How to Want It…The Slaughter, engages with the ancient lore of the wild hunt to explore human relationships and the tension that exists between the hunter and the hunted.  Dark Goddess: An Exploration of the Sacred Feminine, her latest exhibition – which included her short film, interviews,  photography, and other curated items – has been featured at the Southern Vermont Arts Center and the Fleming Museum of Art.  The Dark Goddess: Sacroprofanity, Volume III of the Dark Goddess series, will be featured at the Bennington Museum in 2024.  In terms of her wide spanning work and interests, Shanta Lee shares, “I am a practitioner of entanglement. I connect and engage with a collection of areas. Exploring the connections that extend beyond the categories or boxes we prescribe to places, things, and ourselves, is what excites me the most. Can you limit your life to a “one thing”? As humans, do we truly have only a singular purpose? Or are we intermeshed with things, energies, peoples, places in ways that defy our attempt at confined labels and definitions?”  To learn more about her work, visit: Shantalee.com.