Youth Writing Workshop Series
Workshops are open to all experience levels, whether you've already published your first book or you've never written a poem before. Our team of teaching artists will guide you through warm ups and writing exercises to stoke your imagination, explore new ideas, clarify your voice, and hone your craft. Attendees will be invited to contribute to creating community agreements to hold a brave space centered in consent and care. Workshops typically open with checking in, a warm-up activity, followed by the session's lesson, ample time to write, and the option to share what you've written before closing out the workshop. Feel free to invite your friends to tag along!
Image Description: Over a background with earth-toned rainbow rays radiating out from the center, a beige square with sparkles contains Split This Rock's red logo and the following text: Join free monthly workshops at American Poetry Museum followed by the If All The Trees Were Pens Open Mic hosted by Sasa Aakil! With teaching artists Kenny Carroll, Lauren May, Alexa Patrick, Brandon Douglas, and Ayinde Sekou Grimes.
Split This Rock's Spring & Summer Writing Workshops
In Collaboration with American Poetry Museum and If All The Trees Were Pens Open Mic
Under 25 and near Washington, DC? Come through to the American Poetry Museum to get into the writing groove with our team of teaching artists for a free workshop each month, then register for the If All The Trees Were Pens Open Mic to share your poems with DC's vibrant intergenerational writing community!
From April through August 2024, Split This Rock is hosting a monthly youth writing workshop at the American Poetry Museum in Brookland, DC. Workshops are hosted on the last Wednesday of the month, 6-8pm, and are free to attend. Participate in dynamic writing workshops open to writers of all experience levels, beginner to advanced, led by our brilliant team of teaching artists who will support you in developing your unique voice and honing your craft. Learn more about each Teaching Artist below.
Workshops are free to attend, and free refreshments and masks will be provided. Check below for specific workshop dates and directions for getting to American Poetry Museum. For questions or accessibility requests, please reach out to chelsea@splitthisrock.org.
If All the Trees Were Pens Open Mic
If you're hungry for more community and a supportive audience to share your newly crafted poems with, purchase tickets and/or get on the open mic list for the If All the Trees Were Pens open mic. This monthly open mic is hosted by local poet and multi-disciplinary artist Sasa Aakil at the American Poetry Museum every first Friday of the month, 6-8pm. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased directly through Sasa's website. Follow @ifallthetrees on Instagram for more information. Free tickets are available for a limited number of youth who attend the preceding Split This Rock youth writing workshop!
American Poetry Museum
716 Monroe St NE #25
Washington, DC 20017
Workshops will be held on the following dates and times:
- Wednesday, April 24, 2024, 6-8 pm
- Wednesday, May 29, 2024, 6-8 pm
- Wednesday, June 26, 2024, 6-8 pm
- Wednesday, July 31, 2024, 6-8 pm
- Wednesday, August 28, 2024, 6-8 pm
American Poetry Museum is located adjacent to the Brookland-CUA Metro on the Red Line. Street and garage parking are available. When you arrive, the American Poetry Museum is located on the north side of the Monroe Arts Walk that directly faces the Metro station. If arriving by Metro, you will pass underneath the Michigan Ave NE overpass and the venue is located directly behind the "Arts Walk" tower. If arriving from Monroe St NE, turn down the Arts Walk, passing Brookland Pint on the left and Tropical Smoothie on the right until you reach the end of the Arts Walk. Make the left turn and American Poetry Museum is the second space on the left.
Free refreshments and masks will be provided. We encourage all workshop attendees wear a mask to keep the space safe and accessible for all participants and as a practice of community care. An air purifier will be running during the workshop. Thank you for helping us hold safe space!
ACCESSIBILITY
The venue is wheelchair accessible. Masks are required of all workshop attendees and an air purifier will be running during the workshops. To request accommodations, please send an email to chelsea@splitthisrock.org. Emails received 7-10 business days before the workshop date will give us our best opportunity to fulfill requests.
Meet Split This Rock's Teaching Artists
Split This Rock works with 5 Teaching Artists: Alexa Patrick, Ayinde Sekou Grimes, Brandon Douglas, Kenny Carroll, and Lauren May. Learn more about each Teaching Artist below.
Alexa Patrick
Alexa Patrick (she/her) is a vocalist and poet from Connecticut. She holds fellowships from Cave Canem, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and more. Alexa is currently the Programs Director for Shout Mouse Press. In spring 2023, Alexa made her stage production debut as Un/Sung in the opera We Shall Not Be Moved, directed by Kennedy Center honors awardee Bill T. Jones. You may find her work in publications including Adroit, CRWN Magazine, and The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic. Her debut collection Remedies for Disappearing was published by Haymarket Books in June 2023. To learn more, visit Alexa's website.
Image Description: Alexa is Black and has black cornrows. She stares directly at the camera with a closed mouth, half smile. She has a hoop nose ring, and winged eyeliner. Her hand has brightly-colored nails, a turquoise ring and a gold ring, and rests lightly on her chin.
Ayinde Sekou Grimes
Ayinde Sekou Grimes is a Hip Hop teaching artist born in Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring Maryland, and has been living in SE Washington, DC for his entire life. As a native of Anacostia, Ayinde uses his poetry and his music to connect to his community and to expose the people he comes into contact with to new areas of interest and opportunity. As a DCYST Alumn, Ayinde found out how to use his art for activism under the guidance of Split This Rock. His poetry is rooted in the love of creating spaces free to exceed preconceptions with unifying support that will eliminate the ‘isms’ of patriarchal white supremacy (sexism, racism, colorism, imperialism). His artistic education has blessed stages like the Kennedy Center of Performing Arts, the Convention Center, Busboys and Poets, and even across the waters to Sweden from the classrooms and collectives of his native district. Ayinde will continue to use his poetry to reach believers in his community where he can mold his mentoring and administrative skills, to be useful when he achieves his dream of building his own school.
Image Description: The camera faces the left side of Ayinde, who is looking towards the camera and smiling with his front arm reaching towards the lens in front of a residential intersection with two traffic lights on green and brick homes in the background. Ayinde is wearing a red and black checkered flannel with a chest pocket that reads “The World is Mind”, and a beaded black bracelet. Ayinde’s skin is brown and his hair is long and dreadlocked in a freeform fashion, reaching below his front shoulder blade.
Brandon Douglas
Brandon Douglas is a product of the land known as Washington DC. He began writing when he was 12, after discovering his ability to write raps. Through his teenage years, poetry and hip hop fused to become his ultimate tool of self-expression. Then one day, he got just enough courage to share what he was thinking and writing about at an open mic. The rest is history. Since then he has been on the DC Youth Poetry Slam Team, and opened for Maxwell, The Last Poets and the late Gil Scott Heron. He’s performed at the Woolly Mammoth Theater, the Kennedy Center, The Atlas Performing Arts Center, The Phillips Collection as well as in South Africa just to name a few places. With his artistry, he works to guide others toward positivity and encourages others to strive to be whole. His experience has provided him with the opportunity to become a teaching artist and serve the community via education and empowerment. He is constantly working to grow as an artist as well as a person, and he details this journey through his words in an honest way so that others may be moved to do the same.
Image Description: Brandon is shown in a black and white photo. His locs are tied toward the back of his head with a black headband. He is wearing glasses and dark colored shirt.
Kenny Carroll
Kenny Carroll is a writer from DC. He was the 2017 DC Youth Poet Laureate, and in 2019 received the Thomas Lux Scholarship from Sarah Lawrence. His work has been featured in Split This Rock’s The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database, The Hill Rag, and Beltway Quarterly, among others. He is a Watering Hole and Obsidian fellow, as well as a teacher for students from middle school to college. You can find him online @Kennyc113.
Image Description: Kenny, a black man with long black locs that are braided back on his head, sits in front of a green mural on a bright day. He is wearing a short sleeve black shirt with a gold chain. He has a small tattoo of a magnolia on his right forearm.
Lauren May
Lauren May is a writer, artist, host, teacher, student and french fry enthusiast from D.C and PG Country, Maryland. She’s a 2-time member of Split This Rock’s award-winning DC Youth Slam Team, and currently a Split This Rock Teaching Artist. She traveled to South Africa as part of a Sister Cities International Arts Program to perform and teach poetry, and learn about the role young people and artists play in movements for social justice. Her poetry speaks to personal struggles and triumph, mental health, social problems, and the celebration of life (and french fries). She’s featured as a guest speaker at The White House United State of Women Summit (2017), MCASA’s 10th Annual Women of Color Network Conference, the National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence and at the DC National Guards event for Suicide prevention and awareness. She has performed at Arena Stage, The Kennedy Center, and at the famous Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City. She has also featured at Busboys and Poets, University of Miami as well as multiple colleges in the DMV area, including George Washington University. She's shared stages with artists like Questlove, Common and Maxwell as well as published two books of poetry.
Image Description: Lauren May is a black woman with green eyes and long copper colored twists in her hair. She is seated at a black table with a black velvet couch and pillows behind her. She looks directly at the camera with her hands folded under her chin and elbows resting on the table, wearing a frilly green mesh shirt. She wears multiple stone bracelets on both wrists, jade stone ear weights, and multiple streaks of crystals under her eyes as a part of her makeup.