Forms & Features with Hannah V Warren

In “Writing the Grotesque,” we will explore the joys of incorporating traditionally displeasing aesthetics into our poetic practices. How can we beautify the non-beautiful? When should we let it remain hideous—and where can we use grotesque imagery as metaphor, emphasizing disgust, contamination, and monstrosity? 

Famously, aesthetician Wolfgang Kayser defines the grotesque as the “monstrous fusion of human and nonhuman elements.” With poets such as Cathy Park Hong, Ada Limón, and Sy Hoawah as models, this workshop offers composing methods to poets who seek to develop their use of grotesque imagery. We will explore what it means to call something disgusting, to label a body or idea contaminated.

Rather than viewing poetry as a genre with one lineage, participants will consider a variety of grotesque, abject, and sublime texts—including monster theory, art-horror, and anthropology—as tools in poetry-writing. We’ll determine how a body can find power and reclamation in inhabiting or rejecting the grotesque.

This workshop is for participants aged 18 and older, of all backgrounds and experiences with reading and writing poetry.