 let’s Write

experience from everywhere

Award-winning poet María Fernanda leads literary workshops in the form of collective literary experiences. Each is conceived and developed by María Fernanda with the intention of supporting writers in their literary career as participants join from across the world.

Click the event that you are interested in below. See a more accessible or printer-friendly version here

If you would like to book María Fernanda for a performance, click here. Learn about her class packages and experiences, here.

Busboys and Poets Speakeasy Open Mic Ft. María Fernanda

Crossroads: Strategies for Revising Poetry

Poetry Night Panel

featured workshop

etymology

etmon • etymos • ology

Generations of people, much like language, change over time. Every once and a while, there are unknown relatives to add to our family tree or new words in an etymology chart. In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to select a word, follow its root on an etymology chart, and write a poem inspired by each new word. Family tree templates will also be available to fill in with poetry. Generative writing exercises will be inspired by excerpts of poems, literary archives, and more.

RSVP at politics-prose.com/list/online-class-etymology-writing-your-literary-lineage-poetry-workshop-2543

What’s Next

Check out María Fernanda’s selected upcoming events by clicking a calendar date below. If you would like to book her, click here.

What will we do together?

Mess + Process at The Kelly Writers’ House at The University of Pennsylvania

Creativity

Each experience is crafted to encourage your intuitive choices. Historical contextualization will ground the direction of the lesson in an effort to inspire imagination.

Generation

Creating new work is a core component. The structure ignites unique ways to begin writing both in and out of the collective literary experience.

Revision

Finding the best editing process for your current project is crucial. Several of María Fernanda’s serial collective literary experiences include one-on-one sessions with her to focus on your work.

How Does It Work?

Contact María Fernanda for a free 15-minute informational call. We will discuss your project and learn how an artistic programmer or poet may serve your process. Contact me here.

Fade In: Reading Screenplays to Inspire Poetry

Nikki Giovanni: Of Her Quilt

This is Your Poem: A Tribute to Nikki Giovanni

A True Revolution: Nikki Giovanni

Parkmont Poetry Field Trip

Break a Vase, A Poetry Workshop: Writing the Zuihitsu

Equilibrium of a Line

DC Scores Elementary School Performances

Join DC SCORES as we kick off poetry slam season with our middle school performances! Award-winning poet María Fernanda will appear as a poetry judge.

Let’s Write Poetry Saturdays — Entiou

DCZinefest & María Fernanda — Unfolding Poetry

Writing Vignettes

We will write short vignettes in narrative form, lyric form, and persona. A vignette is an episodic piece of writing describing a person or a moment in time. Generative writing exercises will be shaped by Bhanu Kapil’s The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers, as well as poems by artists Dionne Brand, Sarah Ghazal Ali, and Nikky Finney. Participants will leave with twenty vignettes about pivotal moments or years in history or the writer's life. Four Tuesdays from 10/8/2024 to 10/29/2024 in-person at The Writer's Center

Let’s Write Poetry Saturdays — flamenca

Learn to write the Flamenca, a poetic form resembling the rhythms of Flamenco.
The Flamenca is a cinquian (or a five-line stanza) with defined assonant and syllabic structures. Participants will learn the technique of the original Flamenca literary form, which is defined as mimicking the “clicking” of the flamenco dancer’s heels, however the flamenco dancers’ heels stomp and their castanets click.
With this in mind, María Fernanda will also introduce participants to her expansion on the poetic form. She aligns the flamenco dancer’s percussive footwork—planta, tacón, punta, talón—with the sounds in the Latin alphabet and also pairs flamenco props—floorboard, castanets, and fan—with literary devices.
Participants will read examples of the Flamenca form, write their own poem(s), and learn the various cultural influences on Flamenco with an emphasis on Black diasporic perspectives (contemporary and historic).
This workshop is one hour. This workshop is one hour. You are not required to share or read your poem aloud at the end of workshop as this experience is for you, first.
Register here.

Contrapuntal Workshop —Middle School level

Participants will learn the pecha kucha as the Japanese business presentation style as it was originally established and the poetic form, interpreted by poet Terrance Hayes. Poet and educator Michael Frazier contextualizes that the presentational form “consists of only [20] pictures and allows for 20 seconds of speaking per photo.” (Frazier). Hayes uses this format as a framework to form work containing 20 images with a 20-second stanza written in quatrains in his book Lighthead. Instruction will focus on writing about pivotal years, real or fiction, however participants are not limited to do so. Optional pre-read includes Pecha Kucha, Low Coup, Hyperbolic Time Chamber Experimentation with Japanese forms by Michael Frazier. This workshop is an open-lingual space. English and Spanish speakers are welcomed. This will be taught in English.
writer.org/event/latine-heritage-2024/

Let’s Write Poetry Saturdays — Décima

This workshop offers participants an opportunity to delve into the contrapuntal, a poetic form which blends two or more poems to be read in multiple directions. Examples will be provided.
Generative writing exercises will encourage participants to think as curators.
This is an exploration of shared histories across an individual’s work and the development of new interpretations.

The Writer's Center — Writing the Pecha Kucha

Learn to write the Décima, an oral Black Ecuadorian poetic form comprising 44-lines, with award-winning poet María Fernanda.
Different from European décima¹ from Spain (i.e., Espinel), the Décima is often memorized by decimeros/es/as/xs (a term used by Salazar, Juan García) in Las Esmeraldas, Ecuador to convey the happenings, customs, and genealogy of a place when traveling. Participants will study examples of this form and write their own through historically contextual, generative writing exercises!
¹Note: Scholars distinguish between forms using uppercase “D” and lowercase "d".