Button University: Carson Wolfe Workshop

In this workshop, we will use persona and form (traditional and contemporary) as the Ouija Boards in which we’ll ‘invite in’ the ghosts fogging the windows of our poems. Ghosts could be someone you know, a public or literary ghost, or the larger encompassing ghosts of colonialism, war, or legislation. Ghosts can be living today, inanimate, or mythical. Your ghost is what gnaws at you, what slips into your free-write on a completely different subject, what you consume and what you avoid. We will light a fire and warm our hands with what haunts us, exploring how we may reimagine the stories we are told or have told ourselves. We’ll interrogate power, take revenge, and grant justice.

Enter Ghost is a famous stage direction from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, signalling the physical appearance of the ghost of Hamlet’s father on stage. It is also the title of the acclaimed 2023 novel by British-Palestinian author Isabella Hammad.