I’m so excited to move through the rooms of Annie Ernaux’s world and discover spaces in which we can pause, experiment, and write.

"Embodied Poetics: Writing from Inside the End of Roe V. Wade"

A woman writes near a window, watching the past self like a sociologist—wanting to see without going back to being that girl. Memory is a form of knowledge both in process and in articulation. "The room is the real that resists, whose existence I have no means of conveying except by exhausting it with words," French author Annie Ernaux has written. This room, the reality that resists, is what she calls a "present anterior" which offers the self a window looking back and into the present at the same time. In this generative workshop, we will explore ways into the present anterior of the poem that is the room of the life.

You can register online for this free generative Zoom workshop sponsored by the International Women’s Writing Guild.

*

And here’s a free PDF of 109 poetry writing prompts to try after you have locked yourself in the bathroom and told the kids mommy is sleeping on the toilet.