Dante Di Stefano will lead a two-hour virtual workshop on writing political poetry in a partisan America. The first part of the workshop will consist of a reading and informal lecture on the 21^st century poetry of witness. Di Stefano will read from his own work, and from the work of H.L. Hix, William Heyen, Tim Seibles, and Safia Elhillo. The second part of the lecture will feature a discussion where participants are invited to explore their own experiences writing about political and social issues. The afternoon will conclude with a generative workshop, in which Di Stefano will provide prompts and participants will write poems and share their work if they feel inclined to do so.  The prompts and writing activities used in this final section might be used in the Creative Writing classroom on either the collegiate or secondary level.

Dante Di Stefano is the author of three poetry collections: Love Is a Stone Endlessly in Flight (Brighthorse Books, 2016), Ill Angels (Etruscan Press, 2019), and Lullaby with Incendiary Device, which was published in a three-in-one volume titled Generations (Etruscan Press, 2022), also featuring work by William Heyen and H.L. Hix. Along with María Isabel Álvarez, he co-edited the anthology Misrepresented People: Poetic Responses to Trump’s America (NYQ Books, 2018). He holds a PhD in English Literature from Binghamton University and lives in Endwell, New York. His book-length poem, Midwhistle, is forthcoming from University of Wisconsin Press.