In Inciting Joy, Ross Gay writes, “What if joy, instead of refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks?” After the community joy and success of last year's workshop, we return to the New Orleans Poetry Festival to bring "Where We Come Together." This gathering is an ekphrastic workshop that is part short film screening, part guided writing prompts, and most of all, a space we might create together for our reflection and healing. Focused on the multifaceted reality of the present moment–that someone is being born right now, that someone is dying, that someone feels the greatest pleasure of their life– and our deep ecological connections, this workshop will use Liz Williams-Trader’s short film to encourage participants to reflect on their greatest joys and greatest griefs. We will write them together and emerge different.
The first half of our workshop will begin with a screening of Liz Willliams-Trader's short experimental film, Where We Come Together (5:20mins). Created from overlaying the artist's portraiture with video from an outdoor camera, the film achieves a deeply moving and paradoxical reflection on life, culture, death, as the viewer watches life beautifully continue through and beyond our personal griefs. Workshop participants will then be guided through two structured and approachable writing prompts based on the film. If feeling is transformational, and art captures and provokes feeling, we are sharing this film and incanting our writers towards writing poems of joy and grief so we each might leave grounded, in touch with ourselves, and yes, changed.
We gather with you to generate writing, yes, and also, something good and healing. This workshop is devoted to the multifaceted unflinching study of the present moment's beauty, grief, and the reality that we are each transformed by feeling what is.
As a group of artists, we understand that our larger present moment would not be possible without disassociation on a large scale, and we understand that encouraging Presence and Creativity are antidotes to the ways we violate ourselves and others when we live in numbness. In this way, we hope and know this workshop together will bring waves of positive change that will last longer than our beautiful festival.
Timeline for this Workshop:
10 min introduction to the artists, 5-7 min intro to film
6 min watch film, 25 min first prompt grief
8 min sharing first prompt
6 break
6 min watch film, 25 min second prompt joy
10-15 share work and discuss how these prompts talk to each other
Sat, 04/18/2026 - 4:00 pm