Dragonfly Community Arts celebrated National Poetry Month with poetry workshops at the John Daly Library in Daly City, CA. Each week a new visiting poet led the workshops and offered exercises that sparked creativity and helped attendees create fresh, new stanzas of poetry. All sessions were free and open to the public. Dragonfly also supplied free journals and pens to get attendees started.
The first workshop was held on April 5 and was curated by Maw Shein Win, inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito, CA. Maw's most recent poetry book is “Storage Unitf or the Spirit House” (Omnidawn) which was nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry. On April 12, Baruch Porras-Hernandez took over workshop duties. Baruch is a poet, comedian, and arts organizer. He is also the author of two poetry chapbooks, “I Miss You, Delicate” and “Lovers of the Deep Fried Circle” (Sibling Rivalry Press). On April 19, Kim Shuck, poet laureate emeritus of San Francisco, closed out the workshops with lessons intended to help attendees nurture their poetic craft.
Dragonfly wrapped up National Poetry Month on April 26 with an all-ages open mic at the library. Each workshop instructor read their poems alongside workshop students and open mic attendees.
Dragonfly Community Arts would like to thank the John Daly Library for welcoming us during the month of April. And a giant thank you to our poetry instructors and workshop attendees. We can’t want to do it again!
