Susie Anderson
Staff Writer
Writers’ Center workshops in Week Four will navigate the power of songwriting and explore ancestry through poetry.
Maritri Garrett will lead “This is my Story, this is my Song” and Maritza Rivera will teach “Honoring the Ancestors.” Both of the workshops are available through Special Studies.
Garrett and Rivera will perform and read, respectively, from their work at 3:30 p.m. Sunday in the Hall of Philosophy.
In the workshop, Garrett plans on digging into the anatomy of songwriting as storytelling from beginning to end. In the constraints of mere minutes, Garrett said that the power of crafting a well-written song cannot be understated.
“Often people think that they’re the only person going through something. And you hear a song, and you realize that you are not alone, and maybe the songwriter deals with that or maybe not,” Garrett said.
She brings expertise from a diverse musical background as a composer, multi-instrumentalist and singer. She has written for theater, ballet and film and will draw on her experiences as an artist to lead her workshop. In her own life, the power of songwriting emerges in its subliminal resonance with listeners.
“I think that’s really the role of music and the artists and writers — to really give something to the people to really sort of think about,” Garrett said. “… There’s such a learning experience that (listeners) didn’t even know what they were learning.”
For Garrett, an example of this is listening to her children sing every word from the soundtrack of the musical Hamilton. When they started learning about the Declaration of Independence in school, Garrett’s children drew connections to a story they already knew through the songs.
“Even though they’re not aware of it completely, there’s an awareness that happens, and I think that’s what music does,” she said. “It just sort of lives within us, whether we know it or not.”
Just as great lyrics can live on in one’s memory, they can stir emotional responses without the listener’s realization. Garrett said that the undercurrent of meaning, emotion and education through songwriting makes it a powerful tool for storytelling.
“Sometimes I think, maybe subliminally, we are hearing the lyrics and just not being intensive because certain music makes you feel a certain way,” Garrett said. “I mean, sometimes I find myself almost in tears, and it’s more happy tears than anything else, but then, you look at the words, and you’re like, ‘Oh, well, that’s why I feel this way.’”
Garrett will discuss and perform some of her songs on Sunday, and she will be joined by Rivera, who will lead a poetry workshop about honoring ancestors.
Rivera is a Puerto Rican poet and U.S. Army veteran who has been writing for over 50 years and created the Blackjack poetry form. Her work has appeared in several books and poetry playing cards. She has co-edited the Afro-LatinX anthology Diaspora Café: D.C., and her most recent work appears in the anthology This Is the Honey, edited by Kwame Alexander.
Rivera plans on beginning her workshop with the poem “Blessing the Boats” by Lucille Clifton, guiding participants into a week of exploration into their identity and their past. Rivera said the poem brings everyone in the workshop to the same page.
“We carry things with us,” she said. “We don’t know where they come from — we carry talents, we carry interests that we have inherited. And the poem says, whether we know them or not, we carry them in our souls.”
By prompting participants to explore key parts of their identity, such as their name, favorite dish or place of origin, Garrett said that a common thread of humanity will emerge.
“We have more in common than we know we do. And this is work that brings that because these are universal things,” Rivera said. “Everyone has a name, everyone cooks, everyone has had losses, and all of those things have had an impact on our lives.”
By examining inherited traits and traditions, Rivera looks forward to establishing a community in her workshop that values introspection and exploration. She said that in her previous workshop experience, she found that asking seemingly simple questions about one’s name or favorite dish generates engaging work.
“They almost sound like very simple topics, but when you jump into them, it just creates poetry, and sometimes the poetry writes itself,” she said. “And that’s a gift.”
