MWC is partnering with Illinois Humanities to present free poetry workshops for K-12 students on Saturday, April 29 at the Rock Island Public Library:

To Feel the World as a Poem: A Youth Poetry Workshop

Many terrific poems create a certain magic where the language transforms a large thing into something small and personal or takes a small thing and expands it into something large and universal.

In this workshop, we’ll look at some examples of such magical poems (including poems by Gwendolyn Brooks); then, we’ll write our own poems, using our five senses, our memories, and our feelings. We will close the workshop by sharing our poems and look ahead to writing new ones.

Students will be invited to submit their poems to the Gwendolyn Brooks Youth Poetry Awards, a statewide youth poetry competition founded by Gwendolyn Brooks herself when she was Illinois’s poet laureate. Illinois Humanities has been proud to present the competition since 2017.

These workshops will be divided into two age groups: grades K-6 from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. and grades 7-12 from 12:30-2:30 p.m. They will be hosted at the Midwest Writing Center by Executive Director Ryan Collins. Food and drinks will be provided.

This event is free and open to students in grades K through 12, but space is limited. Please click here to register today.