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Maria and Julia Lisella (from the left), Josh Kurtz, and Kenny Likis collaborate and contemplate their writing during a workshop in Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room.
Photos by Grace DuVal
Arts & Culture
Establishing universal bonds through the deeply personal
Woodberry Poetry Room workshop focused on the tradition of elegy inspired by isolation and sorrow of the pandemic
Elegy, a type of poetry historically crafted to honor those who have passed and grieve their absence, is frequently composed in solitude. On a recent warm Tuesday afternoon at Lamont Library, a small gathering — some poets, most not — convened to create, read, and refine their own elegies.
The workshop, directed by Karen Elizabeth Bishop and David Sherman in collaboration with the Woodberry Poetry Room, is part of the duo’s ongoing “Elegy Project.” The event from late last month was complemented by a reading later that evening in Houghton Library’s Edison Newman Room by poet Peter Gizzi, the author of the T.S. Eliot Prize-winning compilation “Fierce Elegy.”
“The Elegy Project is a community poetry initiative,” Sherman remarked. “We place poem cards in public locations for strangers … Our aim is to alleviate the loneliness of grief.”
The Elegy Project received the Poetry Room’s 2023 Community Megaphone grant. With funds donated by poet Tom Healy ’83, the Poetry Room commenced providing stipends to individuals and nonprofits in the Boston region to promote their creative efforts and contributions to the community.
“Elegy represents perhaps the most fundamental and human of poetic impulses — the desire to mourn, to honor, and to console all emerging from the unavoidable human condition: to be alive is to face loss,” said Mary Walker Graham, associate curator of the Woodberry Poetry Room. “Elegy not only eases this loss, it expands our ability to experience the complete range of human emotion.”
Launched in the spring of 2022, Bishop and Sherman mentioned they were motivated to create the Elegy Project after witnessing the isolation and sorrow brought on by the pandemic, believing there had to be a method to demonstrate to people that they were not alone.
“During the pandemic we intended to compile an anthology of elegy. However, the publishing industry progresses at a glacial pace,” Bishop commented. “Everyone was isolated at home. Thus, we decided to create a deconstructed anthology that would be instantly available and accessible, and ‘aggressively randomly accessible,’ as Dave puts it.”
Bishop and Sherman both distribute poetry cards wherever they travel.
“I carry thumbtacks in my pocket alongside the cards, and I place them on wooden utility poles, or leave them at the post office, on the train, or the bus, or perhaps on a bench, and it’s randomly contingent,” Sherman explained. “It’s unstructured. It’s eagerly welcoming randomness.”
Both Bishop and Sherman assert they incorporate elegy into their professional endeavors as well. Bishop is an associate professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at Rutgers University, where she studies and teaches contemporary poetry and narrative. Sherman is an associate professor of English at Brandeis University, where he explores elegy and the politics of remembrance.
“I believe elegy embodies this exquisite type of yearning toward what’s lost or what’s gone,” Bishop expressed. “Isn’t that the essence of death? A desire to reach out, to make a forward motion.”
Kenny Likis (center) and fellow participants utilize the Poetry Room’s collection and prompts from workshop leaders for inspiration.
Xiaolong Yang (left), a student at the Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, discusses notes with poet Hajjar Baban.
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“Our goal is to alleviate the solitude of grief,” stated Elegy Project co-founder David Sherman (right).
The latest workshop marked the second collaboration between the Elegy Project and the Poetry Room. Last spring, they hosted poetry sessions with selected guests. This time, there was an open invitation for anyone eager to create a poem.
“I believe these individuals likely engage with poetry privately, sharing it with a few friends, and are eager to broaden that experience significantly,” Sherman commented. “These participants are individuals occupied with life, engaged in genuine experiences where poetry aids in processing, and they simply seek to write within a community.”
The assembled group included doctoral aspirants in physics alongside retired artists. They were encouraged to draw inspiration from the Poetry Room’s collection as well as prompts from Sherman and Bishop.
“Elegy may be the most fundamental and human of poetic urges — the necessity to mourn, to celebrate, and to comfort, all stemming from the unavoidable human condition: to live is to face loss.”
Mary Walker Graham
“The idea behind the activities was to foster a lively dialogue between individuals and texts, among individuals, and across various lines, allowing for unexpected outcomes,” Sherman explained. “It involved open exploration, discovering new volumes on shelves, and then feeling inspired to express something personal.”
Bishop emphasized that utilizing prompts and delving into texts can help stimulate creativity as well.
“It alleviates some of the stress associated with waiting for inspiration or for your mind to formulate an idea,” she noted. “I believe that kind of structure is incredibly beneficial for individuals to begin writing a poem or simply engage with poetry in some capacity.”
Graham, the associate curator of the Poetry Room and co-organizer of the event, shared that workshops like the Elegy Project’s play a crucial role in connecting the community and bringing poetry out from the shelves.
“Poetry is for everyone, not exclusively for the authors of published works,” she remarked. “We all possess an equal right to access it, not just to receive it but also to create it. Workshops like this one cultivate the poets within all of us.”
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