Black Lives Matter, no human is illegal, women’s rights are human rights, trans lives matter, science is real, water is life, and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
We’re here and we’re Queer.
👇🏽 Keep reading to learn more about the core values of our community.
COMMUNITY
“Without community there is no liberation.” - Audre Lorde
Community is the central pillar of The Poetry Lab. We build community by holding space, which is to say, making room for marginalized voices and for those who feel underserved in traditional academic spaces. We work hard to keep our community financially accessible. We know that saying “everyone is welcome at The Poetry Lab” isn’t enough. We must show in our actions how we invite collaboration and conversation. From The Poetry Lab, many projects have ignited in the hearts and minds of our members and grown out into the world. This is an immense source of pride for us. We’ve helped birth other workshops, websites, poetry readings, podcasts, prompt series’, Instagram accounts, and even a publishing company or two have been born here. Martha Beck says that one of the most important aspects of navigating toward your essential self is finding your people. We hope that when you arrive at The Poetry Lab you find some of them waiting for you.
CREATIVITY
At The Poetry Lab, we honor creativity, the power and will to create. We honor the agony of worrying our creations are not good enough, and we honor each other by trusting that, actually, our creations are plenty good enough and worth sharing with the world. We honor the creative process, we honor the tremendous wealth of inspiration, the intensity of revision, and the reward of a finished poem. We honor the notion that some poems are never finished. We honor the work when it is time to move on from it. We reward ourselves by picking up the pen on another day and writing some more.
PRACTICE
Our favorite definition of practice comes from Buddhist writer Pema Chodron:
“practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better. It’s about befriending who we are already. The grounds of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are.”
At The Poetry Lab, we meet ourselves where we are. We encourage curiosity and loving-kindness. We do not hold to the belief that to be a good writer one must be a tortured, starving artist. We believe the opposite is true. The most successful and prolific writers are pretty chill! The secret is that they have put themselves on a steady diet of engaging with their art, liking themselves, and accepting that even for the most creative artist the daily routine of writing can be a little mundane. Writing is a practice with no real reward or end game. The joy comes with the process. If you decide to join us at The Poetry Lab this is where we will meet you: just as you are.
safety
The Poetry Lab is a safe* place in your community to write, read, and collaborate.
*We consider this website and all Poetry Lab communities, both online and in person, to be a safe space. We reserve the right to restrict access to our community to anyone who does not hold to our high standards of respect and kindness. We welcome people from all backgrounds with open hearts and open minds. We are protective of our friends in the Queer and LBGTQIA2S+ communities, Women, Non-binary folx, African American and Black people, Indigenous people, AAPI people, Chicana/Chicano and Latinx people, Immigrants, and people with Disabilities (this is an expanding list). We are actively in conversation with our community to create the most accessible, anti-racist, and anti-sexist space possible. If this statement does not ring true for you, we may not be the community you are looking for. We wish you luck on your learning journey.
When you enter the Zoom Astral Plane* with us, we invite you to relax and be comfortable in your space. Turn your camera off when you need to. Lay down, stand, stretch, take bathroom breaks, or snuggle your fur baby. We acknowledge that we are humans in chairs and at desks and not faces on a screen. We appreciate your active listening and your attentiveness to folx when they are sharing poems and ideas. We welcome you to enter the conversation and use the chat box to communicate. We encourage our visiting teaching artists to use visual aids during their classes. We model this practice by creating Jamboards for sessions led by members of the Poetry Lab Team. Closed captioning is made available at all workshops sessions as well. We appreciate the technological advances that have allowed us to meet and learn through programs like Zoom, but we also know that this is no substitute for hugs, real conversations, and the general solace we feel in community with one another. If you are feeling isolated and alone, please know that you are not alone. You can email the team at jedi@thepoetrylab.com or our director at poetrylab@outlook.com at any time. If you’ve recently attended a session, and have suggestions for how we can improve your community member experience please let us know your thoughts in our After the Lab Survey.
*credit for this awesome phraseology goes to instructor Mindy Nettifee!
zoom
LAND
We host our virtual gatherings from the Greater Los Angeles Area in California, Washington, D.C. and Vancouver, B.C. in Canada on land that was historically and currently used by several tribes including the Tongva, Nacotchtank, and Qayqayt. We acknowledge the painful history of genocide and forced removal of these communities from these areas. We deeply respect the many diverse Indigenous peoples still connected to this land. This acknowledgement calls us all to continue learning how to be better stewards of the land we inhabit and commit ourselves indefinitely to acknowledging and reconciling this long history of injustice and trauma.
Find out more about the Indigenous lands on which you reside here.
