What I'm Up To: Zine Workshops

I've spent my last few Friday afternoons attending a Poetry and Zine Workshop at a local women's centre. I'm so pleased that I discovered this place existed, they are a community hub which welcomes all women and afab genderfluid folk and offers a variety of useful and fun things, from CV workshops to book clubs.

We had all built up a nice rapport from spending so much time together over the last few weeks, and it was so validating to be part of such a supportive group. We had been working on erasure poems, streams of consciousness writing based on found objects, and responses to other poems from a huge zine library.

Looking at the masses of small press spread out on the tables in front of us, I felt overwhelmed by this huge sense of kinship with all of these writers and artists over time. Every pamphlet showed so much history and passion, all lovingly put together to share, celebrate and educate.

I'm not sure if I'm any better of a poet for it, but I did rediscover the simple joy of just writing. I also gathered some ideas for how to get inspiration flowing again the next time I'm stuck.

Below are some photos of my contribution (poetry and illustrations) to the collaborative zine (W)hole that the group produced. I will attach a downloadable PDF when one is available!