THE WITCHES & WARRIORS RETREAT
July 21-24, 2022
The Watershed Center
Our inaugural retreat is a space for BIPOC poets and movement workers. Six poets and six activists will be invited to rest, dream, scheme, share skills, and build relationships on a 73-acre farm in upstate New York.
Bringing together the radical creativity of poets with the audacity and expertise of activists, Witches & Warriors will create space for participants to envision together a more liberated future. Activities will include workshops, discussions, writing sessions with faculty mentors, rest and play time, and a public reading/celebration. The retreat will take place at the Watershed Center in Millerton, New York (Munsee Lenape and Mohican Land). This year, we are pleased to welcome Cynthia Dewi Oka and Alexis Pauline Gumbs as faculty.
Applications for the 2022 retreat are now closed. If you applied and did not receive a notification email, please check your spam folder and/or contact hello@brewandforge.com.
WHO THIS RETREAT IS FOR
BIPOC poets, organizers, activists, and movement workers who are interested in the intersection of poetry and social justice organizing/movement building. We will be prioritizing people located in the Northeast, to facilitate local relationship building.
RETREAT ACTIVITIES
The retreat will be a mix of structured and unstructured time. Activities will include workshops led by our faculty members, discussions on the interplay between art and organizing, presentations of participants' work, and collaborative writing sessions. There will also be time for rest and recreation: games, swimming, hikes, yoga, meditation, etc. The retreat will culminate in a public event on-site. See draft schedule below.
COST
There is no fee to attend the retreat. Participants are responsible for their own travel.
HOW DO I APPLY?
Submit your application by 11:59pm EST on Saturday, April 30. All applicants will be notified of decisions by May 27.
The application includes:
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biographical information, including a 150 word bio
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a work sample (5-7 pages of poems, or a 5-page max description of your organizing work)
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answers to three essay questions (500 words max for each):
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Who are your people / who is your community?
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What is your experience in working at the intersection between the arts and organizing/activism/movement-building?
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What do you hope to get out of this retreat?
QUESTIONS?
Email us: hello@brewandforge.com
MORE INFO
The Witches & Warriors Retreat comes out of five years of building solidarity between writers and organizers through the annual Brew & Forge Book Fair. In the course of that work, we’ve seen how organizers everywhere are in dire need of restorative spaces to help them dream outside of the day-to-day grind of campaign work. Meanwhile, poets understand how our work can be transformative for communities, and yet often find ourselves siloed in academic spaces and/or struggling to create within an under-resourced field. We take heart in the way Pablo Neruda’s line “Podrán cortar todas las flores, pero no podrán detener la primavera” (“You can cut all the flowers, but you can’t stop spring from coming”) animated the Arab Spring and subsequent social movements. And yet, in our current context, it’s hard to find spaces specifically designed for poets and activists to talk to each other, dream together, and create the powerful works of poetry that will animate the movements to come. We believe writers, especially poets, can help make the fights for racial, economic, and gender justice more imaginative and more nourishing for the people in them. We envision the Witches & Warriors Retreat as a catalyst, a meeting point, and a spark for future collaborations.
The 2022 retreat is made possible with support from the Women Donors Network, RESIST, the Markham-Nathan Fund, the Poetry Foundation, and many individual donors. Thank you!
RETREAT SCHEDULE
Note: This schedule is subject to change!
Thursday
2-5 pm Check in
6-7 pm Dinner
7-7:30 pm Welcome
7:30-8 pm Rest
8-9:30 pm Opening Circle
Friday
7-8 am Early Bird Activity
8-9 am Breakfast
9-10 am Free Time / Morning Writing
10-10:30 am Community Agreements
10:30-11:45 am Faculty Workshop
11:45 am-12 pm Rest
12-12:30 pm Mini-Session with Faculty
12:30-1:30 pm Lunch
1:30-4:30 pm Free Time / Guided Hike / Crafts
4:30-6 pm Group Discussion: Poetry in the Movement
6-7 pm Dinner
7-7:30 pm Rest
7:30-8:45 pm Fellow Presentations
9:00-11:30 pm Night Owl Activity
Saturday
7-8 am Early Bird Activity
8-9 am Breakfast
9-10 am Morning Writing or “In It Together”
10-11:15 am Faculty Workshop
11:15 am-11:30 pm Rest
11:30 am -12:30 pm Dream Session: The Future of Poetry & Activism
12:30-1:30 pm Lunch
1:30-2 pm Mini-Session with Faculty
2-6 pm Free Time / Swimming
6-7 pm Dinner
7-9 pm Public Reading
9 - 10:30 pm Bonfire + drinks
10:30pm -12 am Night Owls Activity
Sunday
7-8 am Early Bird Activity
8-9 am Breakfast
9-10 am Writing Session: How We Hold Each Other
10:00-10:15 am Break
10:15-10:30 am Group Photo + Evals
10:30 am-2 pm Closing Circle
12:30-1:30 pm Lunch
1:30-5:00 pm Depart!
2022 RETREAT FACULTY
ALEXIS PAULINE GUMBS
Alexis Pauline Gumbs is the author of Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (winner of the 2022 Whiting Award for Nonfiction), Dub: Finding Ceremony, M Archive: After the End of the World, and Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity, and co-editor of Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines. Her writing has appeared in publications including Make/Shift, Left Turn, The Abolitionist, Ms. Magazine, and more. She holds a PhD in English, African and African American Studies, and Women and Gender Studies from Duke University and is the co founder of Black Feminist Film School, an initiative to screen, study, and produce films with a Black feminist ethic. In 2020, she was awarded the National Humanities Center Fellowship for her book-in progress, The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Photo by Sufia Ikbal-Doucet
CYNTHIA DEWI OKA
Originally from Bali, Indonesia, Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of Fire Is Not a Country (2021) and Salvage (2017) from Northwestern University Press, and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water (2016) from Thread Makes Blanket Press. Her fourth poetry collection, A Tinderbox in Three Acts, is a Blessing the Boats Selection chosen by Aracelis Girmay and is forthcoming in fall 2022 from BOA Editions. A recipient of the Amy Clampitt Residency, Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize, and the Leeway Transformation Award, her writing appears in The Atlantic, POETRY, Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. An alumnus of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, she has taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr College, New Mexico State University and Voices of Our Nations (VONA). For fifteen years, Cynthia worked as an organizer, trainer, and fundraiser in social movements for gender, racial, economic, and migrant justice. As an immigrant and former young single mother with working-class roots, her aesthetics are guided by her core values: self-determination, collaboration, and attention to the peripheral. She writes to be free.
Photo by José Quintana
THE WITCHES & WARRIORS RETREAT
*This is an archived page for the 2022 retreat! See 2024 information here!*
The Witches & Warriors Retreat is a space for BIPOC poets and movement workers. Six poets and six activists from across the Northeast US are invited to rest, dream, scheme, share skills, and build relationships at a retreat center in upstate New York.
Bringing together the radical creativity of poets with the audacity and expertise of activists, Witches & Warriors creates space for participants to envision together a more liberated future. Activities include workshops, discussions, writing sessions with faculty mentors, rest and play time, and a public reading/celebration. The inaugural retreat in summer 2022 took place at the Watershed Center in Millerton, New York (Munsee Lenape and Mohican Land). Cynthia Dewi Oka and Alexis Pauline Gumbs served as faculty. We are so grateful to all the participants, faculty, interns, supporters, advisors, donors, funders, and community partners that made this retreat possible!
In the spirit of sustainable organizing, we are planning to hold the retreat every two years. The next Witches & Warriors Retreat will be July 2024. Applications will open in spring 2024.
Help us make the next retreat a reality, or learn more below.
WHO THIS RETREAT IS FOR
BIPOC poets, organizers, activists, and movement workers who are interested in the intersection of poetry and social justice organizing/movement building. We will be prioritizing people located in the Northeast, to facilitate local relationship building.
RETREAT ACTIVITIES
-
Daily workshops taught by faculty
-
Discussions on the past, present, and future of the interplay between arts and organizing
-
Presentations of participant work, including a public reading by faculty
-
Collaborative writing sessions
-
Free time and fun activities, including swimming, hiking, yoga, games, and karaoke.
For more details, see the 2022 retreat schedule below.
COST
There is no fee to attend the retreat; however, participants are responsible for arranging their own travel to the retreat site.
HOW DO I APPLY?
Applications will open in spring 2024. Deadlines have not yet been set.
Application information will be posted in 2024, but required materials typically include:
-
biographical information, including a short bio
-
a 5-7 page work sample of your poetry and/or organizing
-
3-4 essay questions (500 words max for each)
QUESTIONS?
Email us: hello@brewandforge.com
MORE INFO
The Witches & Warriors Retreat comes out of five years of building solidarity between writers and organizers through the annual Brew & Forge Book Fair. In the course of that work, we’ve seen how organizers everywhere are in dire need of restorative spaces to help them dream outside of the day-to-day grind of campaign work. Meanwhile, poets understand how our work can be transformative for communities, and yet often find ourselves siloed in academic spaces and/or struggling to create within an under-resourced field. We take heart in the way Pablo Neruda’s line “Podrán cortar todas las flores, pero no podrán detener la primavera” (“You can cut all the flowers, but you can’t stop spring from coming”) animated the Arab Spring and subsequent social movements. And yet, in our current context, it’s hard to find spaces specifically designed for poets and activists to talk to each other, dream together, and create the powerful works of poetry that will animate the movements to come. We believe writers, especially poets, can help make the fights for racial, economic, and gender justice more imaginative and more nourishing for the people in them. We envision the Witches & Warriors Retreat as a catalyst, a meeting point, and a spark for future collaborations.
The 2022 retreat is made possible with support from the Women Donors Network, RESIST, the Markham-Nathan Fund, the Poetry Foundation, and many individual donors. Thank you!
RETREAT SCHEDULE
Below is the schedule for the 2022 retreat. Please note that this is subject to change in 2024.
Thursday
2-5 pm Check in
6-7 pm Dinner
7-7:30 pm Welcome
7:30-8 pm Rest
8-9:30 pm Opening Circle
Friday
7-8 am Early Bird Activity
8-9 am Breakfast
9-10 am Free Time / Morning Writing
10-10:30 am Community Agreements
10:30-11:45 am Faculty Workshop
11:45 am-12 pm Rest
12-12:30 pm Mini-Session with Faculty
12:30-1:30 pm Lunch
1:30-4:30 pm Free Time / Guided Hike / Crafts
4:30-6 pm Group Discussion: Poetry in the Movement
6-7 pm Dinner
7-7:30 pm Rest
7:30-8:45 pm Fellow Presentations
9:00-11:30 pm Night Owl Activity
Saturday
7-8 am Early Bird Activity
8-9 am Breakfast
9-10 am Morning Writing or “In It Together”
10-11:15 am Faculty Workshop
11:15 am-11:30 pm Rest
11:30 am -12:30 pm Dream Session: The Future of Poetry & Activism
12:30-1:30 pm Lunch
1:30-2 pm Mini-Session with Faculty
2-6 pm Free Time / Swimming
6-7 pm Dinner
7-9 pm Public Reading
9 - 10:30 pm Bonfire + drinks
10:30pm -12 am Night Owls Activity
Sunday
7-8 am Early Bird Activity
8-9 am Breakfast
9-10 am Writing Session: How We Hold Each Other
10:00-10:15 am Break
10:15-10:30 am Group Photo + Evals
10:30 am-2 pm Closing Circle
12:30-1:30 pm Lunch
1:30-5:00 pm Depart!
2022 RETREAT FACULTY
ALEXIS PAULINE GUMBS
Alexis Pauline Gumbs is the author of Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals (winner of the 2022 Whiting Award for Nonfiction), Dub: Finding Ceremony, M Archive: After the End of the World, and Spill: Scenes of Black Feminist Fugitivity, and co-editor of Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines. Her writing has appeared in publications including Make/Shift, Left Turn, The Abolitionist, Ms. Magazine, and more. She holds a PhD in English, African and African American Studies, and Women and Gender Studies from Duke University and is the co founder of Black Feminist Film School, an initiative to screen, study, and produce films with a Black feminist ethic. In 2020, she was awarded the National Humanities Center Fellowship for her book-in progress, The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Photo by Sufia Ikbal-Doucet
CYNTHIA DEWI OKA
Originally from Bali, Indonesia, Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of Fire Is Not a Country (2021) and Salvage (2017) from Northwestern University Press, and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water (2016) from Thread Makes Blanket Press. Her fourth poetry collection, A Tinderbox in Three Acts, is a Blessing the Boats Selection chosen by Aracelis Girmay and is forthcoming in fall 2022 from BOA Editions. A recipient of the Amy Clampitt Residency, Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize, and the Leeway Transformation Award, her writing appears in The Atlantic, POETRY, Academy of American Poets, and elsewhere. An alumnus of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, she has taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr College, New Mexico State University and Voices of Our Nations (VONA). For fifteen years, Cynthia worked as an organizer, trainer, and fundraiser in social movements for gender, racial, economic, and migrant justice. As an immigrant and former young single mother with working-class roots, her aesthetics are guided by her core values: self-determination, collaboration, and attention to the peripheral. She writes to be free.
Photo by José Quintana
FAQ
WHEN/WHERE IS THE NEXT RETREAT?
Our second retreat will be held in July 2024, location TBA.
HOW DO I APPLY?
Application deadlines have not yet been set, but we will most likely be accepting applications in February-March, 2024. Check back at this page for more details.
HOW CAN I BE INVOLVED IN THE MEANTIME?
You can participate in the Brew & Forge Book Fair, follow us at @brewandforge on Twitter and Instagram, and sign up for our mailing list to learn about other events throughout the year!
WHAT KINDS OF POETS ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?
We do not adhere to any particular style or school of poetry. You do not have to be published, but we are looking for people with a deep and demonstrated commitment to poetry, especially as a community practice. Applications are open to emerging as well as established writers.
WHAT KINDS OF ORGANIZERS ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?
While we hold a capacious definition of movement-building, we prioritize folks whose work involves building power in directly-affected communities in order to address the root causes of oppression. This may include people working toward—and engaging the intersections between—racial justice, climate justice, carceral abolition, LGBTQ+ liberation, worker power, disability justice and/or indigenous sovereignty. Applications are open to new and experienced organizers!
WHAT IF I AM BOTH A POET AND AN ORGANIZER?
We're excited to welcome folks who do both! For the sake of our processes, we ask you to choose one primary designation, with the knowledge that many participants straddle multiple worlds and identities.
I DO NOT IDENTIFY AS BLACK, INDIGENOUS, OR A PERSON OF COLOR. CAN I STILL APPLY?
No. The Witches & Warriors Retreat is for BIPOC writers and movement workers only.
HOW ARE APPLICATION DECISIONS MADE?
Every eligible, complete application is read by two readers, who nominate applications to the final round. Final decisions are made by the retreat coordinators. In 2022, we had a group of six volunteer readers, who represented a mix of writers and movement workers.
I APPLIED BEFORE AND WAS NOT ACCEPTED. HOW CAN I MAKE MY APPLICATION STRONGER?
Unfortunately, we don't have the capacity to give feedback on individual applications. Our best advice is to make sure your application is complete; to include the work you are proudest off in your work sample; and to make your essay responses as clear, specific, and thorough as possible.
WHAT COSTS ARE COVERED?
There is no registration fee to attend the Witches & Warriors Retreat. For the 2022 retreat, our policy was to ask participants to cover their own travel costs to and from Millerton, NY; however, we are exploring the possibility of offering participants partial travel support.
HOW DO I GET THERE?
The 2022 retreat took place at the Watershed Center in Millerton, NY. See this page for information on how to get to the retreat venue. For those arriving by train, we will arrange rides to/from the nearby Metro North station (Wassaic).
WHAT ARE THE SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS?
All rooms are communal, with 2-3 beds to a room. We will gather participants' sleeping preferences and do our best to accommodate everyone's needs. Participants may also bring tents to camp on the grounds, if preferred.
HOW ACCESSIBLE IS THE VENUE?
The main house at the Watershed Center has an accessible entrance and bathroom, as well as one room that can be converted to be wheelchair-accessible. We will do our best to accommodate all accessibility needs, including dietary needs, interpretation services, child care, etc. We gather information on such needs after applications are accepted. If you have specific questions about access, please email hello@brewandforge.com.
WHAT ARE YOUR COVID SAFETY PROTOCOLS?
The Watershed Center has a comprehensive COVID policy. Most group activities will be held outside or in a well-ventilated yurt. We will require all faculty, staff, and participants to be fully vaccinated (including a booster shot). Additionally, we require you to bring a negative PCR test, and will be conducting rapid-testing onsite during check-in. We will determine masking policies closer to the retreat date, based on current guidelines and the needs of our participants.
We recognize that we are all navigating an ever-changing landscape when it comes to the pandemic. We commit to—and ask all participants to commit to—being flexible and adaptable as conditions shift.
WHAT IF I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS?
Please email hello@brewandforge.com, and we will be happy to answer!
HELP US DO THE DREAMWORK!
You can help us build a stronger and more creative movement by supporting BIPOC organizers, activists, and socially-engaged poets. The Witches & Warriors Retreat will need community support to become a reality! Please consider donating below!
Brew & Forge is a fiscally sponsored project of the Peace Development Fund, a 501(c)3 public foundation. If you'd like your contribution to go specifically toward funding the retreat, please write "for Witches & Warriors" under "add note."