Look / Mira: Latinx/e Ways of Looking in Poetry & Prose

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “Look / Mira: Latinx/e Ways of Looking in Poetry & Prose,” a workshop led by José Angel Araguz on Wednesday, October 8th from 6:00-7:30 PM EST. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta).

This 90-minute generative workshop invites participants to explore the act of looking as both cultural inheritance and creative practice. Drawing on Latinx/e writers whose work reframes the gaze, we’ll consider how looking and being looked at are shaped by language, place, and power. We'll read short excerpts from poetry, creative nonfiction, and hybrid works that reimagine observation as resistance, remembrance, or recognition. Through guided discussion and low-stakes writing prompts, we’ll experiment with how our own ways of looking—familial, spiritual, political—can be transformed into generative ground for new work. Open to writers of all levels, this workshop encourages a porous approach to genre and centers communal reflection and craft curiosity. Participants will have the option to share aloud and leave with drafts and revision ideas.

José Angel Araguz, Ph.D. is the author of the lyric memoir Ruin & Want (Sundress Publications) as well as the poetry collections Rotura (Black Lawrence Press) and La esperanza espera (Valparaiso Ediciones). His poetry and prose have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Poetry International, The Acentos Review, and Oxidant | Engine among other places. He is an Associate Professor at Suffolk University where he serves as Editor-in-Chief of Salamander and is also a faculty member at large for the Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program. He blogs and reviews books at The Influence.

This event is brought to you by a grant provided by the Tennessee Arts Commission.

You may also like the following events from Sundress Academy for the Arts:

• Next Sunday, 31st August, 06:00 pm, August Poetry Xfit in Powell, Tennessee
• Next month, 10th September, 10:00 pm, Making the Personal Political: Writing Protest Poetry in Powell, Tennessee
• This November, 12th November, 11:00 pm, The Intersection of Religion and Mental Health in Poetry in Powell, Tennessee

Also check out other Arts events in Elsa, Literary Art events in Elsa, Workshops in Elsa.