Lucille Clifton ShapeShifter Survival School Summer Session 2011 - Durham, NC

[nya_ugenya]

In honor of the great poet Lucille Clifton, who was also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, a mother, an artist and self-identified Amazon warrior through her poetry, the Lucille Clifton ShapeShifter Survival School is especially designed for families that are committed to ending childhood sexual abuse and all forms of gendered violence. Informed by Generation 5 and the regional plan of the Atlanta Transformative Justice Collaborative, the ShapeShifter Survival School is part of a holistic process of ending child sexual abuse by creating healing community.

Lucille Clifton Rebirth Summer 2011
For 5 Thursdays in Lucille Clifton’s birth month of June we will gather as survivors of child sexual and physical abuse and sexual violence and parents and caretakers committed to ending cycles of abuse in our families and communities to do writing activities based on Lucille Clifton’s poetry and the ShapeShifter Survivor Rebirth Broadcast video series. Participants in the series will also receive digital mixes of the music we work with to create a sacred space of memory. We can use the digital music mixes at home to activate memories of safety from the group writing space.

Rebirth Summer Thursdays:

Thursday. June 2: Unapologetic: Reclaiming Our Memories and Voices
Thursday, June 9: Bright: On Clarity and Power
Thursday, June 16: Gentle: On Cultivating Self-Love
Thursday, June 23: Futuristic: Towards the World that We Deserve
Thursday, June 30th: Planetary: The Depth and Urgency of Our Healing


Our intention is that after this summer month of Rebirth the Shapeshifter Survivor writing group will continue on a monthly basis hosted by participants as an ongoing source of support and healing drawing on work by Lucille Clifton and other writers.

For more information, email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com

[nya_ugenya]

"You know what a shapeshifter is? A werewolf is a shapeshifter. A creature that for some reason at some times suddenly becomes altogether different and awful. I think you'll know what the poems are about."






shapeshifter poems

1

the legend is whispered
in the women's tent
how the moon when she rises
full
follows some men into themselves
and changes them there
the season is short
but dreadful shapeshifters
they wear strange hands
they walk through the houses
at night their daughters
do not know them

2

who is there to protect her
from the hands of the father
not the windows which see and
say nothing not the moon
that awful eye not the woman
she will become with her
scarred tongue who who who the owl
laments into the evening who
will protect her this prettylittlegirl

3

if the little girl lies
still enough
shut enough
hard enough
shapeshifter may not
walk tonight
the full moon may not
find him here
the hair on him
bristling
rising
up

4

the poem at the end of the world
is the poem the little girl breathes
into her pillow the one
she cannot tell the one
there is no one to hear this poem
is a political poem is a war poem is a
universal poem but is not about
these things this poem
is about one human heart this poem
is the poem at the end of the world

to my friend, Jerina

listen,
when i found
there was no safety
in my father's house
i knew there was none
anywhere. you are right
about this, how i nurtured
my work not myself, how i left
the girl wallowing in her own shame
and took on the flesh
of my mother. but listen,
the girl is rising in me, not willing
to be left to the silent fingers
in the dark, and you are right
she is asking for more than
most men are able to give,
but she means to have what she has earned,
sweet sighs, safe houses, hands she can trust.


Credit: Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton.