Attending Honors Program events: 3 points - Poetry Workshop: The Archive Within

On Wednesday, September 24, 2025, I attended Ariana Benson’s Poetry Workshop: The Archive Within, where we talked about Giving Voice and how poetry can be used as a form of radical resistance. We reviewed different poems, including Dr. Strange’s Dark Room Collective, and discussed how poets tell stories that rewrite or challenge history. Ariana shared one of her own poems inspired by Moses Grandy, written from the perspective of the swamp and the trees that witnessed his story. I thought that was really creative because it showed how even nature can hold memories and tell stories in its own way. During the workshop, we were asked to write our own poems using a line or two from an existing piece and make an object or thing the witness. I picked two lines from Imperial Liquor by Amaud Jamaul Johnson: “the most dangerous men in my neighborhood only listened to love songs” and “to reach those notes a musicologist told me a man essentially cuts his own throat.” I am not a poet so this activity definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone, but it also helped me see poetry differently. It made me think about how love, pain, and vulnerability can all exist together and how even simple things can hold meaning if we pay attention. By the end I realized poetry is not just about fancy words or perfect rhythm, it is about finding your own way to express what you see and feel.

Kristen Watts