Student identity construction is heavily influenced by the tiered structures of an academic instruction that deems multiple or disparate identity as problematic. However, poetry “has value outside of personal expressivity, [as] it is a learning tool that simultaneously conveys existing cultural aspects while helping to forge new social expressions through the preservation, appreciation and challenge of written language and its associated principles” (“Multiplicity and the Student Writer” 240), this is because the poet’s is an “allegorical role; beneath the language of signs and beneath the interplay of their precisely delineated distinctions, he strains his ears to catch that ‘other language’, the language, without words or discourse, of resemblance” (The Order of Things 50). It is that other language surrounding the more common written expressions of similitude that is most important to fragmentation, because poetry operates on “a linguistic spectrum that, for some moments at least, problematizes ... the notion of a ‘native language’” (Crawford 64).

Therefore, this innovative session run by three poet/ educators seeks to help us better understand the essence of lingual multiplicity as remixed identity through poetics. Participants will engage with contemporary poetry, learn interesting techniques for incorporating poetry into the classroom, and explore their own multitudinous identities through writing exercises. Each presenter will begin by reading 5 - 7 minutes of their own poetry as grounding for the writing and discussion that follows— These readings are meant to both inspire and mimic some of the pedagogical projects that will be discussed.

Meghan P. Nolan, MFA, MA, PhD will begin by drawing on her research in multiple disciplines, including sociolinguistics, composition, and persona studies by projecting images and reading poems that reflect how “intercommunication” and “mediatization” work to produce “industrialized agency” (Persona Studies 2020) and fragmented identities in the hypermodern. This will serve as an exemplification of “the possibilities of the flexible self, of which we have become more comfortable with in virtual spheres, [and] in all of our writing” (“The Rhetorical Benefits of Poetic Fragmentation” 62).

Daniel Dissinger, MFA, MA, PhD will then perform his improvisational poetry style Remix Poetix, a style inspired by African-American Hip Hop artists, DJs, and the cut-ups by William S. Burroughs. Andrew Levy notes, “In such improvisations there is a whole world of relationships among the things we feel and know, and of the ways in which they might fit” (“Improvisation in Poetry”). In his performance, Daniel will pull random lines of his own poetry, use recorded readings from other poets, and incorporate music into his reading to create a layered poetic experience reflective of intersectional identity.

Aimee Herman, MFA, will read from their poetic memoir that explores the poetics of sex work, trauma, and genderqueerness while questioning how a body is imprinted/hindered by the binary. Gender and queer studies scholar, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick states that “one of the things that ‘queer’ can refer to [is]: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses...[and] the experimental linguistic, epistemological, representational, political adventures” (8). So, instead of reading what already exists on the page, Aimee will cut up their own poems to create a fracturing of self— a new relationship will form creating a connection/disconnection of memories and identities, as the audience becomes part of the dislocation.

After these readings, the speakers will outline how they apply poetics in the non-creative college classroom (15 minutes). They will explain their pedagogical approaches, foregrounded in what Theresa M. Lillis and other discourse theorists (Fairclough and Gee) refer to as Identity Work (or Identification)— “the processes and practices of identifying the self with others, semiotic resources, language(s), institutions” (The Sociolinguistics of Writing 126). However, because poetry hinges on experience, they go a step beyond pedagogical methodology by giving attendees the chance to experience this approach from the student perspective.

The remaining 35 - 40 minutes will be a writing workshop and discussion, in where participants will engage with creative writing prompts designed help them to explore their own multitudinous identities. The speakers will circulate the room during the writing session and discuss efficacy/ answer questions in between prompts. Topics may include: the poetics of identity, the teaching of poetry in non-creative courses, poetry as a means of bridging communities, incorporating international poetry, and natural code-meshing in poetics. This will guide participants to “help students to consciously explore their personal performances of multiplicity in creative ways and concurrently familiarize them with” academic writing genres (Nolan 240). Attendees will leave with the writing prompts and additional resources to inform their own pedagogy after the session.