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Shared Grief, Living Tradition: Writing the Contemporary Elegy

Shared Grief, Living Tradition: Writing the Contemporary Elegy

In this reading and writing workshop, we will explore the distinct force of elegy, poetry of mourning and memory. We will slow-listen to the undermusic in elegiac traditions and hear their contemporary resonances. And we will engage these traditions to better know our own experiences of struggle and express our own commitments to others. How can these past voices guide our own ways of understanding loss and bearing witness to one another’s grief? How might our poems circulate among others, in shared acts of memory, gratitude, and grief? Participants will read and discuss several inspiring poems, free-write, compare ideas in small groups, and shape our own poetic language. We will also have time to share our writing with the full group and consider next steps for building out our poetic practice.

This workshop will be taught by Karen Elizabeth Bishop and David Sherman, co-directors of The Elegy Project, a public poetry initiative that distributes poems in public places for strangers. Since 2022, TEP has left thousands of poetry cards in libraries, subways, post offices, bars, and bookstores, as well as on countless utility poles and park benches. This initiative is an attempt to make the world more interesting and grief less lonely. Karen Elizabeth Bishop is faculty in Spanish and Comparative Literature at Rutgers University and author of several books, including the poetry volume the deering hour. David Sherman is faculty in English at Brandeis University. 

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Shared Grief, Living Tradition: Writing the Contemporary Elegy