Workshop: Poetry Reading and Body Abstraction

Join us for a special edition of our life drawing series featuring artist and poet Tracy Wai de Boer. This unique evening blends life drawing, poetry reading, and expressive movement into one powerful session. Participants will have the chance to hear Tracy read from their recently released book Nastos, with each poem brought to life through embodied storytelling. Following each reading, Tracy will hold a pose—offering artists the opportunity to capture not only their physical form but also the emotional resonance of the poetry.

What's the Plan?

-An Opening

-Warm up activity on using somatic experiencing in our drawings

-Sharing 3 poems from Tracy’s book, followed by a life drawing component for the audience to respond to their words

-Opportunity to debrief

Basic supplies provided, however if you have specific materials you hope to use, please bring it.

Tracy Wai de Boer (she/they) is an award-winning writer, poet, and multidisciplinary artist. She has curated interdisciplinary community art shows with Little Fernwood, The Ministry of Casual Living, and Open Space (upcoming this spring! Keep your eyes open for what promises to be an incredible immersive event!)

Tracy co-authored Impact: Women Writing After Concussion, which won the Book Publishers of Alberta Best Non-Fiction Award and was named one of CBC’s Best Non-Fiction Books of 2021. Her chapbook, maybe, basically, was published with Anstruther Press in 2020. Tracy was a resident at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (2017, 2023) and her work has been featured internationally in outlets including Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, Catapult, Plenitude Magazine, Ricepaper Magazine, G U E S T, canthius, Prude Magazine, Petal Projections, and Unearthed Online Literary Journal. Nostos is Tracy’s first full-length poetry collection.

About Nostos

i came from the sea / first on fins then on fours

Taking its title from Ancient Greek, Tracy Wai de Boer’s Nostos is a hero’s journey rooted in the quest for selfhood from elemental beginnings to an unknowable end. “Nostos” translates to homecoming and is one of the root words of nostalgia; the other, “algos,” means pain, making nostalgia a painful return home. This etymology acts as guide for de Boer’s “i” when she imagines homecoming as less a moment of arrival and more about desire to move through pain and mystery in the formation of self. Nostos is an essential debut from one of Canada’s fastest rising poets.