Haunted Pen ~collaborating poetically with mist and other beings~

Haunted Pen ~collaborating poetically with mist and other beings~

Haunted Pen is a playful and serious exercise in coalescing to write poetry towards radical self-love and Land Back. The intention of this  six-week course is to foster collaborative poetry-making and generate poetic belongings and community. Haunted Pen focuses on the transformative impacts of collaborative poetic communities that can be understood, in Leanne Betasomasake Simpson’s terms as ‘sintering’. Empire is bloodthirsty for the poet’s imagination-these classes exist as sites of solidarity and joy; they are locations of refusal and remembrance. Imagination is top dog.Participants are invited to deeply read, listen, question, share and generate poems to be included in a journal created by the class. At this moment, this interregnum, creating and writing together is a vital act of resistance that lays the foundations for world-building.

Delivery mode: Online via Zoom.

Days/times: Mondays, 6PM-8PM AEDT. Starting Monday 16 March, ending Monday 27 April.

Scholarship places: Five full fee scholarship places are available for First Nations or unwaged participants. Please email info@ipcs.org.au with a brief EOI to apply.

Key Course Questions/Texts:

Key questions: 

• Ghouls or goddess? 
• Ghost or muse? 
• Collaborator or infiltrator? 
• what/who does your voice sound like?

Key texts: 

• Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, Joy Harjo  
• When My Brother Was an Aztec, Natalie Diaz 
• Archival Poetics, Natalie Harkin  
• Theory of Water, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson 
• A Glossary of Haunting, Eve Tuck & C. Ree 
• Electric Arches, Eve L Ewing 
• Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde, Alexis Pauline Gumbs 
• Whereas, Layli Long Soldier 
• We Are Going, Oodgeroo Noonuccal 
• Blakwork, Alison Whittaker  
• Always Italicise: How To Write While Colonised, Alice Te Punga Somerville  
• Rock Flight, Hasib Hourani

Educator: Anne-Marie (Ani) Te Whiu (Te Rarawa-pakeha) is a queer, Gadigal based poet, editor, cultural producer, workshop facilitator and weaver. Her central praxis focuses on the transformative potentiality of poetic collaboration towards Land Back. She previously edited Woven (Magabala Books, 2024), Tony Birch’s Whisper Songs (UQP, 2022) and Cordite 116: Remember alongside Micaela Sahhar. Her debut poetry collection is Mettle (UQP, 2025). Ani holds a Master of Social Change Leadership (2025-Atlantic Fellows for Social Equity,University of Melbourne). She has served as a board director for Runway Journal, Emerging Writers Festival and Blak & Bright.

About The IPCS School:

Located on Wurundjuri Country, The Institute of Postcolonial Studies (IPCS) is a space for collective learning and praxis committed to (re)creating a world beyond racial capitalism through Indigenous sovereignty, connection, creativity and intellectual curiosity.

The IPCS School sits within our broader mission to build accessible, liberatory spaces for collective study that centre Indigenous sovereignty and self determination, nurture collective knowledge-making and foster global solidarities. The School is an opportunity to expand our offerings, deepen communtiy participation and support liberatory modes of study.

Accessibility: If you have any accessibility queries and/or requirements, please reach out to us at info@ipcs.org.au