The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Poetry Xfit hosted by Emory Night. This generative workshop event will take place on Sunday, May 21 from 2 to 4 pm EST via Zoom. Join us at the link tiny.utk.edu/sundress with the password “safta”.
Poetry Xfit isn’t about throwing tires or heavy ropes, but the idea of confusing our muscles is the same. You will receive ideas, guidelines, and more as part of this generative workshop series in order to complete three poems in two hours. A new set of prompts will be provided after the writers have written collaboratively for thirty minutes. The goal is to create material that can be later modified and transformed into artwork rather than producing flawless final versions. The event is open to prose authors as well!
Emory Night is a queer author from East Tennessee. They are currently a senior at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and are working on getting their bachelor’s in creative writing. They have worked as an intern for both Sundress Publications and SAFTA. They have been published in The Phoenix, a literary magazine at the University of Tennessee. During their free time, you’ll find them hanging out with their cats, playing Dungeons and Dragons, or playing video games.
Thank you to the Tennessee Arts Commission for making this event possible. Find out more about the important work that they do here.
While this is a free event, donations can be made to the Sundress Academy for the Arts here.
Each month we split any Xfit donations with our community partner. Our community partner for May is the Tennessee Equality Project. The Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) advocates for the equal rights of LGBTQ people in Tennessee. TEP do this through legislative advocacy– meaning they lobby the Tennessee General Assembly and local governments around the state. When there is an important federal issue, like anti-LGBTQ adoption issue language in legislation, TEP helps make your voice heard with your federal officials.
The TEP Foundation provides a variety of educational and organizing programming. They have registered 353 voters online since October 2017. TEP provides workshops called Advocacy 101 across the state so that more people can engage their elected officials. They monitor and analyze state legislation related to the LGBTQ community, gather stories about the impact of state preemption of local government and provide public education on the issue, and hold Boro Pride in Murfreesboro annually, which now attracts over 4000 participants. Their Tennessee Open For Business program recognizes companies that do not discriminate against their employees or customers on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Learn more about the work the Tennessee Equality Project does here!
