[ poetry ]
Finding Recklessness in Form, with Julián Delacruz
6 weeks long
meets sundays from 1-3pm eastern time
virtual (Zoom + Google Docs)
This workshop privileges evolution in writing style rather than perfection, learning to be unapologetically yourself, and leaning into your own necessary subjects with depth and ease.
From week to week, we'll examine and write poems from the margins and look at ways that we can build language around our flood subjects, and methods for betraying form. We’ll also be using these readings as a basis for talking about how one goes about exposing the secret self, and what it really means to risk in your work. In this workshop we will move away from writing simplistic poems, and begin writing from a place that cannot be categorized. We’ll become poets who can make silk dresses from worms.
What constitutes original poetic utterance? What can we get away with saying? What is a hot take? What isn’t? How much more of life can we cram into our poems, and how do we continue to pressure our poems to speak to the reality of our lives? These are just some of the questions we’ll engage in Finding Recklessness in Form.
This online creative writing workshop will feature an anti-Iowa style which encourages compassionate editing, as we exhaust our own poems to their emotional limits. Poets of all writing levels are encouraged to apply.
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Julián Delacruz is a third year M.F.A Candidate at Arizona State University. He is a June Jordan Teaching Fellow under ASU’s new poetry program, Poetry for the People, a workshop focused on poetry as a medium for telling the truth and building beloved community. While deeply attentive to craft, he loves mentoring writers who want to embrace more reckless and frayed modes of questioning.
As a teacher, Julián seeks to balance his own sensibilities with attention to the problem areas his students have identified in their work. He is a firm believer in compassionate editing that amplifies a writer's strengths. Julian's specialties include Queer issues, issues of race and social justice, myth writing, and academic writing.
Having taught creative writing for multiple years, and also having worked a series of editing internships at Roof Books (’11), The Paris Review (’12), PEN American Center (’14), The Iowa Review (’15-’17) and Catapult (’16), he is poised to give insightful editorial feedback to writers of many different persuasions.
Julián is also the co-host of Equality Arizona’s Queer Poetry Salon, the largest queer reading series in the southwest. He has had the pleasure to feature such esteemed poets as CA Conrad, Ariana Reines, Richard Siken, Eduardo Corral, and Tommy Pico, alongside queer indie poets across many identities. Delacruz was awarded the 2020 Mabelle A. Lyon award in poetry, and a Glendon & Kathryn Swarthout Award in writing at Arizona State. He lives and writes in Tempe, AZ.
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“Julián Delacruz has become one of my favorite people…ever! [He] has a brilliant way of creating a safe space for all the participants in a group. He is truly gifted in the realm of inclusivity. It is no easy task to lead a multi level group. We are a group of published poets and there are a few of us...like me…who are writing a poem for the first time in our lives. Julián gently nudges me to go deeper and celebrates my authenticity. The class is opening me in ways that have informed how I walk in this world.”
—Alison, Life Coach
“Julián is a deeply gifted, informed writer and teacher. His feedback on my work has been incisive and thorough, generous and compassionate, and sensitive to my unique goals as an artist. His reading assignments and prompts are thoughtfully curated to demonstrate stylistic excellence, formal innovation, and the importance of personal risk in craft. You can be yourself in Julián’s class because he cultivates an environment that feels safe, welcoming, and playful. It wasn’t long before he and my colleagues felt like home. There is so much room to experiment with choice in his curriculum. Like a choose-your-own-adventure, you can go off-prompt to follow the call of your instincts, revise and recycle old poems. Under his wing I am gradually building a nest (dare I say a collection?) with scraps from colorful works in progress, abandoned projects and research rabbit-holes. Julián is essential for Gilliam Writers’ Group. He knows how to meet all writers at any level of experience and guide them closer to the heart of their vision. I am a more courageous and honest writer because of him.”
—Dina Peone, Nonfiction Writer & Lecturer at the University of Chicago
“Julián’s class “Recklessness in Form” is special. Julián has somehow cultivated a beautiful classroom environment, lending to some courageous and vulnerable and experimental works. Julián’s readings and prompts are fantastic: gracefully shaking me into experimenting with a variety of forms — I’ve been stunned a couple times by where that’s led me.”
—David Ayala, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Montana State University
“Julián Delacruz is a fantastic teacher. He not only brought out the part of me I didn’t know was hidden, but taught me how to write better. How to experiment, how to be reckless, and how to have fun writing poetry. He also changed the way I read poetry. The class was a safe nurturing environment that opened many doors for me. I could go on and on, so I hope it’s sufficient to say that Julián creates a loving atmosphere, and a forgiving and kind atmosphere to learn how to write better. I am grateful for him and his class on many levels, I can’t recommend it highly enough!”
—Brainard Carey, Artist & Yale University Radio Host
“Julián has such a special way of helping groups of people to connect in kindness and on a heart level, and he has really succeeded in that manner in this workshop! His kindness and joy overflows into all of us in the class, and he has successfully curated an environment of acceptance and genuine care which exists simultaneously with safety, so that we all feel comfortable opening our hearts and sharing our truth in "recklessness".
As a poet, Julián is mind-blowing. His works are original in style, they celebrate language, take the reader on a journey, light up the imagination, and are enchanting in every way. They are perfectly composed with carefully chosen lyrics and no superfluous words, and beg to be shared with the world. His poems transport the reader, make the reader FEEL, and bring the reader a new EXPERIENCE, every time. In my opinion, Julián's works are often INEXHAUSTIBLE and are experienced anew with each reread.
If you are ever given the opportunity to experience a workshop or class with this master, please do yourself a favor, and take the class! It will be challenging. It will stretch you in ways you have never been stretched, BUT, you will grow in ways you never could have without having experienced a class with the incredible Julián Delacruz! “
—Becca Canny, Virtual Assistant
“I have really enjoyed taking a poetry class with the Gilliam Writers Group. I have found it to be an incredibly interesting experience. I have learned a lot through the poems and writings that Julián has shared and the feedback he has given each of us. I have also had the pleasure of meeting and sharing my work with some really creative and talented people. I would definitely take this class again and I would happily take another workshop with the Gilliam Writer’s Group.”
—Katie May, Engineer
“Participating in the Finding Recklessness in Form workshop led by Julián Delacruz was an incredibly generative, helpful, and powerful experience for me. I had only taken a few poetry classes before this, but have always wanted to be a poet. Julián's facilitation of this course helped me feel so supported, inspired, encouraged, and motivated to write. I left this course feeling like I have really good drafts to work with, great ideas for editing, and a new confidence and commitment to my writing. I am so grateful for this transformative experience that was more than I could have hoped for. “
—Danielle Minna, Program Manager @ The Jewish Studio Project
