Join The Poetry Society of New York for a limited-capacity, six-week poetry workshop.When: March 26th to April 30th, 2025, Wednesdays, 8-10 PM ESTDuration: 6 WeeksWorkshop Overview:Let’s rethink movement as a pre-writing practice and ritual to shake us up (quite literally), to move us (externally and internally), to release that which we are holding on to, to create more space for the self to exist fully. In this six-week writing intensive, we will use movement-based practices and being more somatically aware individuals—that is, humans/writers who focus on the internal and present experience of moving, writing, and living,instead of the end and future result of said movement, written work, and living—to lead us to writing exercises and poems that are more grounded in our bodies, thus allowing for freer,wilder, and more authentic writing to emerge.From sitting down to standing up to walking to mimicking animals to understanding our own physical postures to envisioning and moving our spines like snakes (all of which can be modified for any and all bodies, truly), this physical work will expand the written work of the class. Together we will read pulsating poems, an essay on the erotic, a memoir excerpt about the bodyand how it serves and fails us, the words of Martha Graham on dance as a religious experience, and more, all with the end goal of helping us to continue our group understanding of movement and body as impetus for written art. We’ll even watch clips of movies where Pina Bausch’s dance company performs her choreography, and a man skillfully becomes an ape for the sake of his art. All this will set the stage and prime the mind for us to deepen our creativity just as we are deepening our own connection with our bodies, and our internal lives as a result.We will begin each session with breathing and some form of movement (both of the body and on the page), which will lead to discussions and analysis of readings. Afterwards we’ll workshop each other’s work, seeing what new voices arise within us, what new themes come to the forefront, what aspect of ourselves have been unleashed, and to what effect? Workshop will also allow us to cultivate and sharpen our editorial eyes and serve as a great playground for discussing the many ways one can go about constructing a poem and how we can more effectively push our poems to move in the direction(s) they want to and need to. Writing willbecome like breathing, a simple and kind improvisation, that which sustains us.Who said writing was a purely mental activity? Let’s prove them wrong.About the Instructor:India Lena González is a poet, editor, and multidisciplinary artist. She received her BA from Columbia University and her MFA from New York University. Her work is published in American Chordata, the Brooklyn Review, Harvard Review, Lampblack, Literary Hub, PANK, Pigeon Pages, and Poetry Northwest, among others, and it has been featured on the Slowdown podcast. fox woman get out! (BOA Editions, 2023), chosen by Aracelis Girmay as part of the Blessing the Boats Selections, is her debut poetry collection and was a finalist for Poetry Society of America’s 2024 Norma Farber First Book Award. A three-time National Poetry Series finalist, India is also a professionally trained dancer, choreographer, and actor and has had the pleasure of performing at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, St. Mark’s Church, La Mama, New York Live Arts, and other such venues. She has taught at Columbia University and NYU, as well as for the Poetry Society of New York, and has worked as a teaching artist for Teachers & Writers Collaborative. She currently serves as the features editor of Poets & Writers Magazine, where she has worked for the past six years.