Poetry with María Fernanda

María Fernanda crafted and led her "“A Black Girl’s Poetry Workshop” for Black Girls in Art Spaces at The National Museum of Women in the Arts.

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Experiences with María Fernanda

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As a literary artist, María Fernanda facilitates writing experiences with conversation and literary techniques to support her participants’ writing practices through the following components:

Creativity

Each session 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 session.

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.


Popular Themes of María Fernanda’s literary experiences

Break a Vase

How does fragmentation strengthen and connect us to the most crucial details of our lives? This session disrupts our familiarity with writing toward the story structure of beginning, middle, and end.


Assemblage

Participants have an opportunity to delve into a poetic form blending two or more poems. Explore the written word as sculpture.


Broadside

Create a broadside of your poetry. A broadside is an art print with text and drawings. Select a literary work by another write to give homage to or your own!


and more

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

Where We At! at The National Gallery of Art with María Fernanda

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Hear from workshop participants!

  • I would have liked the class to be another week or more. It was so much fun.

    Years That Ask participant in a four-week course

  • The warm and welcoming energy allowed me to feel comfortable participating alongside more experienced poets.

    Reading Lucille Clifton Through a Desert Lens participant

  • Maria Fernanda is a dynamic facilitator with tons of artistic knowledge that she shares generously, in a truly engaging and inspiring way. She provides very unique and powerful learning opportunities where individual growth and community connections are quickly forged.

    Assemblage participant

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Featured — BGIAS: Black Girls Writers Room (DMV) @ NMWA

a black girls’ poetry workshop

national museum of women in the arts

Explore generations of language in this free poetry workshop with award-winning poet María Fernanda, from DC, who invites participants to learn how to write a contrapuntal poem, a form blending two or more poems and read in multiple ways. Generative writing exercises will be inspired by excerpts of poems, in-library literary archives, and other sources. Participants will consider the many histories of a word, a name, a home, and so much more. This is for first-time writers and poetry enthusiasts alike. Note: Participants will create in-workshop poems and use them to blend; no need to bring poems already written.

Details at Black Girls in Art Spaces.