Crowd-sourcing Community!
craft-a-strophe:
[from craft: making, doing + strophe: part of a poem]
Where crafting, poetry, and climate change come together.
WHEN: Wednesday, August 27, 1-4 PM
WHERE: Woodhaven EcoCulture Centre
WHAT: Join us at the FEELed Lab for an afternoon of FEELed Lab merch-making (buttons, patches, postcards) and “crowd-sourcing community” poem reading. We will supply coffee, poems, and materials if you bring your hands, brains, and voices. If you like, you can bring a t-shirt, tote, or fabric patch to screen print on too.
Some of the Poems (more to come!)…
- Eunice Andrada, Echolocation (Take Care, 2021)
- Erin Robinson, Feral Prayer (Wet Dream, 2023)
- Rita Wong, holders (Undercurrent, 2015)
- Michael V Smith, Braiding Sweetgrass (Queers Like Me, 2023)
- Jenny L. Davis, Just What Kind of Trickster Are You? (Trickster Academy, 2022)
- Ada Limon, Dead Stars (The Carrying, 2018)
- June Jordan, Calling on All Silent Minorities (Directed by Desire, 2055)
- Rebecaa Solnit, Credo (11 pm, November 5, 2024) (No Straight Road Takes You There, 2025) *not really a poem, but can also be read as a poem
- Sabrina Imbler, We Swarm (How far the light reaches, 2022)
… or bring one to read/craft-with (hard copies are helpful!)
Our theme of “crowd-sourcing community” responds to the ongoing work of the FEELed Lab to figure out how to build diverse community in troubling times. We have learned some important lessons; for example – that community is earned, not given; that all communities have internal tensions; that process is as important as outcome; that our potential community is broader, weirder, more wonderful and more diverse than we think; that this work can be very joyful. We have also learned that building community is work that has to be done together!
This craft-a-strophe session’s theme will thus explore how community makes community. What are your ideas, experiences, and questions? We hope you will share them, too!
While participants will be able to take home the micro-poem buttons, patches, and postcards we make together, we will also be stockpiling some of these as part of our “getting off Instagram” move this fall. As a way to keep community growing, these crafted items will be included as snail-mail gifts to subscribers to our newsletter, the FEELed Guide. More info coming soon!
NOTE: Two other great FEELed Lab events are also happening on Wednesday, August 27:
- Woodhaven’s Multispecies Inhabitants are Thirsty! 4:00 – 5:00 pm Screening and Discussion with Clara Kleininger-Wanik, in the Woodhaven Eco-Cultural Centre Schoolhouse
- Plant People Gathering: 6:00-8:00 pm (more info and RSVP here)
Come for one, or stay for all! Snacks, coffee and tea will be available all afternoon.
The FEELed lab 