Introducing the Lucille Clifton ShapeShifter Survival School!!!!

In honor of the great poet Lucille Clifton, who was also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, a mother, an artist and self-identified Amazon warrior through her poetry, the Lucille Clifton ShapeShifter Survival School is especially designed for families that are committed to ending childhood sexual abuse and all forms of gendered violence. Informed by Generation 5 and the regional plan of the Atlanta Transformative Justice Collaborative, the ShapeShifter Survival School is part of a holistic process of ending child sexual abuse by creating healing community.

The ShapeShifter Survival School has 4 components:

Lucille Clifton Sunday Rebirth Broadcasts:  Every Sunday starting on Lucille Clifton’s birthday (June 27th) and going until November 7th Lex will video broadcast a poem by Lucille Clifton and a survival reflection/activity.

ShapeShifter Poetry Intensive for Parents (Saturday August 21st 10am-5pm) CHILDCARE AND MEALS PROVIDED (email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com if you want to do childcare or donate food or photocopies!)

For all parents and caregivers and survivors of sexual violence who are committed to ending child sexual abuse this poetry intensive will allow participants to reflect on Lucille Clifton’s ShapeShifter series and other poems that deal directly with her experience as a survivor of child sexual abuse and to write and share their own poetry of healing and transformation.

Suggested donation: $25-100 (monetary and in-kind donations welcome at any point in the process…we encourage asking for donations from your families of origin and communities as a way to share your vision with them of creating a world free from child sexual abuse)

On Tuesday August 24th participants and allies will reconvene over tea to check-in in a loving affirming space and to make handmade ShapeShifter booklets as a fundraiser for the continued work of the ShapeShifter Survival School .

On Wednesday September 15th we will have another check-in about the process of sharing this work and bringing up the topic of child sexual abuse in our communities.

Everett Anderson Storytime Week! (Monday September 20-Wednesday September 22) (ALL AGES INCLUSIVE DONATIONS WELCOME!)

Lucille Clifton wrote a series of books called the “Everett Anderson Books” for her children and other children that discuss difficult issues, including the loss of a loved one, internalized racism and sexism and witnessing abuse as child.  With dinner and cookies and milk we will read these stories together and do a series of activities designed to help us create ways of sharing difficult and important stories across generations in our communities.   We believe that sharing stories, truthtelling, is a key practice towards ending child sexual abuse and all cycles of violence in our communities.

All Souls ShapeShifter Story Making Day (Sunday Oct 31st 11am-6pm) (ALL AGES INCLUSIVE…SWEET DONATIONS WELCOME!)

Replete with costumes, candy and storymaking stations this will be a chance for us to make our own collaborative illustrated community story about transformation, facing what scares us and creating a world free from child sexual abuse and all gendered violence.  Our beautiful story and our beautiful process of creating together will be a resource for us and for superheroes everywhere.

Applications for the poetry intensive coming soon! Email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com to express interest in participating, donating a scholarship or donating food, money, photocopies, DV tapes and other forms of love!!!!!



tell em!

To get us started talking, thinking and strategizing about how we can love each other better as radical women of color across oppressed communities we thought we’d start with this work by a brilliant person who was actually at the Speak/Cyberquilting/INCITE strategy session at the Allied Media Conference where this idea was hatched.   You can download Andrea Smith’s important and insightful essay The Three Pillars of White Supremacy here.

Please read it with your folks and think about these questions:

When is a time you have done/thought/said something that was harmful to other trans/cis-gendered women or genderqueer folks?

How does white supremacy manifest in the collective, organizations and community spaces you work in now?

Does your organization connect with first nation struggles?

Name an instance where different groups of women of color were not acknowledging the different privileges that operated in a space? How might that have been handled differently?

How does ableism impact your organization? How does it interact with your understanding of the organization itself and the people it serves?

How do you personally relate to the term “model minority?”

How does your skin color or gender identity inform your activism? Does your organization address light-skinned, cis- gender, femme, able-bodied privilege and/or the marginalization of folks internally within the group? Within your work?

Before reading this article, had your group or organization implemented any plans or strategies to address how the three pillars might be at play in the organization?

Add more questions and some comments below!!