Intro to Spoken Word: A Fem Workshop

Greetings from The Fem!

We’re still on hiatus, but we have a wonderful (free) opportunity to share. The Fem Literary Magazine will be hosting our very first workshop! We’re looking for eight (8) people to join our editor, Jasmine Combs, as she explores the art of spoken word. What makes it different from written poetry? What does it mean to perform a piece?

When

Saturday, December 3, 2016 @ 1-2pm EST
Sunday, December 11, 2016 @ 1-2pm EST

Details

• If interested, please email spokenfem@gmail.com
• The subject of the email should contain your last name followed by “workshop app”(Example: Combs Workshop App) 
• In the body of the email, please leave a brief statement explaining why you want to be a part of this workshop. How will this exercise benefit you as a writer/performer? Include anything else you may deem relevant (previous publications, video/audio examples of your spoken word, etc).
• You must be available for both dates
• Must have audio/video access on computer
• This is entirely FREE!
• Anyone may apply but please note that we are giving special consideration to writers who are new to spoken word
• Deadline: November 28, 2016

Thanks in advance to all who apply. We hope to have more workshop activities in the future so please keep an eye out for those as well!

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The Monster Is Familiar by Emily Anne Hopkins

The page: a body
is this, a body is that.
The threat: internal

and opaque. This might mean
the girl is external to everything.
Mirrors double the quick

movement. Impossible pleasure—
to picture her own closed eyes.
A mask of lack: the nose missing

petersburg, virginia / 1964 by Cantrice Janelle Penn

Lessons Learned Late by Brianna Bowman

 

In private,

I have seen men tear at their chests as if to claw out a still beating heart.
I have seen men buckle and heave, crying for their mothers.
I have seen men spit and punch, curse and beg.

You’re a Wanker, No. 9 by Katherine Frain

Letting my Lover Insert my Tampon by Monalisa Maione

You have not left a reachable
surface on my body untouched, so why not?

I’m tired of the daily, hourly, monthly self-plunge
you, wearing your sympathy.

In the shower you run a hand
inside my thigh, print red on the wall.

2 Poems by Shakeema Smalls

rape kit

“(The hung juror) said no one was hurt and that it would be different if the victim were found in the river with her throat slit,” (Morgan Myers, Sun Gazette, November 6th, 2013)

FIND:

hysterectomy, or
annulment
camel toe. menthols.
kool moe dee sweatshirt
lap scarf
cover charge for The Scars He Left On Your Uterus.
1 nite. lost lighter.
the, ”Guide to Negro Phonetics for Public Defenders.”

Toward the Body by Simone Savannah

I can’t stop looking at children
I keep picking them up and imagining they are mine
Their noses, their fingers, the way the little girl’s eyes
have taken the shape of chocolate almonds.
If her name is Aniyah or Olivia, I know God is fucking with me.
I pick her up and want to kiss her, but just tickle her arms
so her mother doesn’t think I’m lonely or begging—

2 Poems by Emily Corwin

tantrum

at first, this terrible mirror, gutted. it is thinking of taking me.
at midnight, screaming illness, I fill a particular dark. I rustle, I
thrash—a girl loose in the bramble, getting wretched, smashing
up a glass syringe. how to return this rage, how it circles endless
—like bruise, like stone too black. I get hurt in you, becoming
skeleton. my ruffles everywhere, wilting.

2 Poems by Casey Moir

Content Warning: physical and sexual abuse. Please practice self-care.