Love, Names, & Odes with Ariana Brown

Workshop Description: Some of the strongest feelings we have are about our own names and the people we love. In this generative workshop taught by Ariana Brown, we will study poems by Ebony Stewart and Meghan Malachi on reclaiming your own name and how to love someone by truly seeing them. Through a series of writing exercises and conversation, participants will consider the power of their own names and the strength of their love (self-love or love for another person). Ariana will guide everyone in writing odes to themselves or to their loved ones. We will close with a group share!

About the Presenter: Ariana Brown is a queer Black Mexican American poet based in Houston, TX. She is the author of We Are Owed. (Grieveland, 2021) and Sana Sana (Game Over Books, 2020). Ariana’s work investigates queer Black personhood in Mexican American spaces, Black relationality and girlhood, loneliness, and care. She holds a B.A. in African Diaspora Studies and Mexican American Studies, an M.F.A. in Poetry, and an M.S. in Library Science. Ariana is a 2014 national collegiate poetry slam champion and owes much of her practice to Black performance communities led by Black women poets from the South. She has been writing, performing, and teaching poetry for over ten years. Follow Ariana online @ArianaThePoet.

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