FREE with Pay-What-You-Wish Admission
Studio B, Wilmers Building

Just as chefs turn basic ingredients into nourishing meals, poets transform words into meaning and connection. In this Poetically Speaking workshop inspired by the museum's exhibition Dine In, participants will explore the parallels between crafting a poem and preparing a dish by selecting “ingredients” like imagery and metaphors to season language with emotion and intention.

Facilitated by Aitina Fareed-Cooke, Poet Laureate of Buffalo, New York, and producer, director, creative arts strategist, and founder of Get Fokus’d Productions, this interactive session invites writers to engage in guided prompts and collaborative writing exercises. Together, participants will create a collective poem that celebrates the creative process as an act of transformation and community.

The finished poem will be recorded and brought to life through digital storytelling, capturing the voices and vision of participants as part of a dynamic poetic experience. Throughout the workshop, we’ll consider how choice, whether of flavor or phrase, reveals something essential about culture, care, and the human experience.