Living Room Craft Talks presents The Fifth Series with Chris Abani and Ellen Bass

Living Room Craft Talks presents The Fifth Series with Chris Abani and Ellen Bass

From the Organizers: “The Modern Elegy. Guest Poet: Chris Abani

No one wants to write an elegy.
            –Kevin Young

The elegy is a poem of necessity. It may have been the first poetic speech, originating when our hunter-gatherer ancestors refused to leave their dead behind. The traditional elegy ritualizes grief, gives it language, and offers at least the beginnings of consolation. The modern elegy may do this as well, but, along with sorrow, there are often more complicated feelings: anger, conflict, guilt, and a resistance to solace. Elegies remember and celebrate our dead and make a space for them to live on the page. We’ll reflect on poems that approach the elegy from a wide range of experience and emotion and I’ll offer structures you can turn to when loss asks us to find words for the inexpressible.”