Forms & Features with Hua Xi

All are welcome to a poetry discussion and creative writing workshop, “Spatial Poetry Workshop,” created and led by Hua Xi.

The Spatial Poetry workshop will teach participants about the historical context around place naming in the U.S., and the ties between toponomy and poetry. In the past few years, hundreds of place names have been changed in a wave of reckoning over the historical injustices, and thousands more are on the table for future changes. Poets have historically helped spread the myths of various places as well as popularize and explain common place names. This workshop invites participants to use poetry as a tool to reconsider the language in their landscape. During the workshop, students will create poems using maps, and in doing so reimaging relationships between space, language and belonging. 

Hua Xi (she/they) is a poet and artist. Their poetry has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, The Atlantic and elsewhere. They previously won the Boston Review Poetry Contest and was the 2022 Poet-to-Come Scholar at the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association. They sometimes teach poetry workshops with the Spatial Poetry Project (spatial-poetry.com).

To allow for more poets to participate in workshops with Visiting Teaching Artists, participants will be registered for the March workshop with grace (ge) gilbert, or the April workshop with Hua Xi, but not both workshops. This program is for adult participants, aged 18 and older.

Closed captioning is available via Google Meet. We are happy to provide ASL interpretation. Please let us know at least one week in advance, if possible, if you would benefit from an ASL interpreter in attendance. If you would benefit from any other accessibility measures, please contact us by emailing [email protected]. Learn more about Google Meet’s built-in accessibility features here.