Poetry Workshop | Photo by Rose Taylor | The Wright State Guardian
On Friday, Nov. 8, the Women’s Center, Black Women Striving Forward and Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority hosted Lindsay Haralson for a poetry workshop. Haralson provided paper and magazines for those present to use to create vision boards and poems, helping attendees get into a creative and mindful headspace.
Workshop with author Lindsay Haralson
Lindsay Haralson has known that she wanted to be a writer since she was a freshman in high school. However, she started her career as a teacher.
“My dad, he is not so concerned with like, emotions and things. So he was kind of just like, yeah, I don't think you want to be a starving artist, so let's do something different. So I said, okay, and I decided to be a teacher. I loved being a teacher, but writing was kind of always hovering in the back as this thing that I wanted to be giving energy to as more than just a hobby,” Haralson said.
Haralson raffled off a copy of her published book, Why Can’t We?: Beyond the Narrative: A Love Letter to Black Women at the end of the night. The book explores what it is like to live as a Black woman using poetry.
She led the attendees through a meditative focus on themselves and their goals.
“Take some time to think about who you think you are. In this moment, I want you to think about what you want for yourself. What do you want for yourself? What are the physical things?” Haralson asked. “What would happen if you centered your life in audacity?”
The last question was a center point that Haralson told her attendees to keep coming back to as they went through their creations for the night.
To-do Lists are poetry too
Faith White is a senior and a Spanish major with a very busy schedule.
“I love me a good to-do list. I have like 40 of them. They're not finished or completed, but I like to make a new one, and I also like to go back and see if I completed it. So I wish I wrote more when it comes to journaling. But the to-do lists, especially with how busy I am, it lets me gauge where I'm at in life,” White said.
Lots of attendees related to journaling and creating to-do lists, with each person having unique rules and outlooks on their lists.
“I went to a writer's conference back in September, and one of the workshops was about how to-do lists are sometimes poems and you don't even realize it. So that was really cool,” Haralson said. “Writing is [something] you're doing all of the time, and sometimes you're creating things that are deeper and you don't even realize it.”
Sanei Spencer is a sophomore nursing major at WSU who came to the workshop.
“I feel like I don't have a lot of time to write about the good anymore. Like, I feel like now it's just me venting my notes app. So it's just like, I wish it was different, but like, that's all I have time for,” Spencer said.
Creating vision boards
Many attendees utilized the magazines that were provided, including both White and Spencer. After completing her vision board, Spencer presented the images and what they meant to her.
“I really just want to build a really happy family. I'm not close to people outside of my parents, so I just want to build that, because sometimes we're not born with it. So we just have to build a family as we go along,” said Spencer.
Aleese Walker is a freshman and an elementary education major who enjoys reading scripture and using pieces of it in her writing. She shared that she loves to be creative and finds it therapeutic.
“I feel like it [is like] meditation, it got me thinking of, like, where do I want to stand?” Walker said. “Just got me thinking, like, who I really am as a person? Like, who is Aleese? Aleese isn't someone who's negative. Aleese is someone who's positive, who wants to connect with people.”
Walker created a well-organized and beautiful vision board about what she wanted for herself.
“I want to be a teacher, elementary teacher, so like, like, these markers are super organized. I want my classroom to look like that. I want it to be, like, very creative and I would say, like nature, it represents freedom. It represents happiness and joy,” Walker said.
Haralson provided lots of valuable advice and things to ponder, and attendees were able to share their beautiful dreams and creations.
