‘No More Elegies’ explores racial violence and micro aggression Nov. 6 at CSB

Chris Bolin has taught a few students from Harding High School in his English and first-year seminar classes at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University.

He's also spent a bit of time at the high school, located in St. Paul, Minnesota, as a writer in residence.

So when Bolin and playwright Christina Ham decided to create a poetry and playwriting workshop that arose out of their desire to respond to the killings of African American men in Ferguson, Missouri; Long Island, New York; and Baltimore, Bolin knew where to turn.

Harding High School.

Between 40-50 students from Harding are expected to be on the CSB campus Friday, Nov. 6, for "No More Elegies" - an event to read selections from their poetry and plays they wrote during the workshop, which explored racist violence, micro aggressions and art's role in responding to these deaths. The readings take place from 11 a.m. to noon and 12:45 p.m.-1:45 p.m. at the Colman Black Box Theater in the Benedicta Arts Center, CSB.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by Literary Arts Institute at CSB and the CSB/SJU English Department.

"I've been working with Harding on a few different projects," Bolin said. "We thought it might be pretty powerful to reach these students and let them know their voices matter."

Bolin said he wanted to bring the Harding students to CSB.

"I think we can show these students that their voices matter on a college campus," Bolin said. "I'm just really interested in them seeing a university that values tackling different issues. On a campus, we can explore race and ethnicity and privilege safely, and these conversations can be sort of a launching pad for social change beyond the campus as well."

Ham, a prize-winning playwright who wrote "Four Little Girls: Birmingham 1963," also teaches at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. She and Bolin ran the workshop, which had a pilot session in May. A second program began in early October, with Bolin and Ham returning to Harding Oct. 30.

"They're writing poetry that is exploring micro aggression, partly based on Claudia Rankine's book 'Citizen: An American Lyric' (which won the 2014 Sister Mariella Gable Award from CSB). They're also writing plays, and Christina leads them through that part," Bolin said.

"We have students looking at identity and who gets to establish identity, and that's partly based on a poem by the poet Danez Smith called 'Alternate Names for Black Boys,' " he added.

The Harding students seem to have benefitted in a number of ways, Bolin said.

"One of the exercises they do is interview a friend or family member about a micro aggression that they've encountered," Bolin said. "What I've found is a lot of students had conversations with their parents or grandparents they might have never had. It's humbling to hear these students connect with their own families about wresting identity back from people who would try to control it."

Thirty Harding graduates currently attend CSB and SJU, and Bolin hopes more may enroll in the coming years.

"We have a pretty long-standing and strong relationship with Harding, but I hope we keep getting more and more of these students," Bolin said.