Kwantlen Poetry Project hosts workshop featuring Angelic Goldsky
The online event explored objectification and typification in poetry
They say speaking the truth is about feeling in your body.
At least that’s what attendees of a virtual workshop hosted by Kwantlen Poetry Project on Nov. 25 were able to explore with queer non binary Jewish spoken word poet Angelic Goldsky.
According to the poetry group’s Instagram, the workshop aimed to lead an audience in an investigation of how the metaphor was invented to “separate the Truth from the Magical.”
The project aims to replace harmful competition with a safe space to share truth and honouring stories, and Goldsky is the latest in a long list of poets they have collaborated with.
“I saw that poetry is a way I can free myself and find who I really was and really understand my feelings and allow myself to expand into the fullness of myself,” says Goldsky.
As a poet, Goldsky is interested in using parentheses in their work, which they covered in the workshop, and how words appear on a page. They’re also interested in exploring the rhythmic element of language, the way music and words work together, and the process of rebirth.
“The process of going through ego-death, personality death, changing who I am. That is unique to me, and I go through a lot of change, and I allow myself to change,” they say.
Goldsky’s book Tinder Loving Empire came out in 2019, and was about letting go of patriarchal conditioning and stepping into their Jewish identity.
“I have changed a lot from that book, but at that time in my life, I was really focused on going through, stepping into my queerness. Understanding who I am as a queer person for the first time,” they say.
Goldsky adds they have learned a lot from young poets, and encourages others to keep being honest and caring, and to separate other people’s expectations and projections from our own power and truth.
“That feeling of like I am just here with this person, and I am being honest, and my body is alchemized. I feel calm. I feel at peace,” they say.
Goldsky adds that speaking the truth feels right in the body because “you can step into the fullness of who you are.”
“I feel like a lot of times we just have to let go of the fear that other people tell us to have. Some of that fear might not be our own, and I think that frees me from understanding that a lot of the fear that has held me back was not even supposed to be mine.”
