Second Wednesdays from now through September we’re running a special series exploring how the Transformative Language Arts Network’s (TLAN) Power of Words conference builds vibrant, vital, connection and sparks growth and change in people and communities.
This week we’re featuring an interview with 2025 Power of Words conference keynote, author and poet Kim Addonizio by conference presenter, singer-songwriter and poet Lisa Moritz, and a reflection from writer and teaching artist Amanda Lacson on her experience at the 2024 conference.
For her Power of Words 2025 performance, Lisa Moritz is offering “The Spirit Finds a Way”.
This mini session features a musical performance by Lisa Moritz as she sings a few original songs that were influenced by or that include principles related to Eastern meditative practices. Lisa will briefly share how years of casual reading about Easter religious practices resulted in the spirit of those texts finding its way into some of her songs.
Lisa Moritz is a singer-songwriter, poet, and lover of all creative artforms. A native of Tipton, Kansas, Lisa has been writing poems and songs since she was nine. She has produced two albums: Dream of Blue (2002) and Holding Time (2007) and is preparing to record a new album of nearly twenty songs written in recent years. Themes in Lisa’s writing range from exploration and portrayal of heartbreak to joy in the present moment. lisamoritz.com
For her Power of Words 2025 pre-conference workshop, Kim is offering "Let’s Write! A generative workshop for poets" and her Saturday afternoon keynote presentation is called "Hope, Uncertainty, and Creativity: Some Notes on Living and Writing”: A talk and reading".
"In this keynote, I'll be exploring the intersections of hope, uncertainty, and creativity through poetry, reflection, and existential questions. I'll share some perspectives from poets and thinkers, and talk about the challenges and revelations of the creative life. I'll conclude with a word/music performance featuring guitarist Danny Caron."
Kim Addonizio is the author of over a dozen books of prose and poetry. Her latest poetry collection is Exit Opera (W.W. Norton, September 2024). Her memoir-in-essays, Bukowski in a Sundress, was published by Penguin. Addonizio’s work has been translated into several languages and honored with fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundation, and her collection Tell Me was a finalist for the National Book Award. Addonizio's work has been widely anthologized and published in many journals, including The Atlantic, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, Poetry, The Nation, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Yale Review, and many others. She teaches and performs internationally and has been an occasional presenter for BBC radio. She lives in Oakland CA, where she teaches Zoom poetry classes. Find her online at https://www.kimaddonizio.com.
Click here for more about all 27 of the TLArtists presenting at Power of Words 2025.
Amanda Lacson’s written reflection sparked by Exodus Oktavia Brownlow’s Power of Words 2024 Workshop, “Writing Strictly from The Imagination: Giving a Voice to Those Literally Without and How Deeply Sitting with the Inanimate Teaches Us the True Complexities About The World”
For those of us who got to see Exodus’s keynote reading, we know she is an inviting performer, a gentle presence and a unique wordsmith. I was fortunate to attend her pre-conference workshop, “Writing Strictly from The Imagination: Giving a Voice to Those Literally Without and How Deeply Sitting with the Inanimate Teaches Us the True Complexities About the World.” Exodus gave us three objects, all having to do with writing, and each coming with their own prompt: a pen, a page, and a paper clip.
I chose the pen. The Pen’s prompt was, “Without me, they can’t write their words.” Over the course of the workshop this is what I wrote (slightly edited).
****
The words. First there was the word. In the Bible that’s the beginning. God speaks existence into being. Being, made concrete, made weighty. The pen makes things solid. We become, with the pen. We are made, with the pen.
The pen is mightier than the sword. What is meant by that? The pen can move people. Can shift mindsets, attitudes. The pen can convince. The pen can reveal what is there, tunnel into the deep recesses of neurons, grey matter, travel along the firing synapses to reveal – something new. Something unexpected.
Without me they can’t write their words. Without words, can they create community? The Tower of Babel is built to separate people from each other, to tear them apart, to send them into different directions. If they can’t understand each other, they can’t come together.
The pen says – without me they can’t write their words.
I am – a quill, dipped in ink, scratched over parchment. I write, in the hands of a capable master, in beautiful flowing script. The words – “Freedom.” “Liberty.” I am bound here to the page, etching out these words, my point bathed in black dye, over and over again. Without me, they can’t write their words. I don’t know if those words are lies or truth. Truth for whom?
I am a fountain pen, my graceful line echoing the quills of yore. I sign heavyweight documents next to seals and insignia. I approve laws, designed to protect the people nearby. I approve wars, the destruction of lands far away.
I am not a pen, but I send messages with ease. I translate, connect people the world over in seconds. I move through networks, fibers, cables, air, near space with ease. I am the zeroes and ones that are snatched from the air and transcribed for you. I infiltrate your homes, minds, hearts. Time and space collapse, as I join people the world over. Or divide people in the same home.
Amanda Faye Lacson is a first-generation Filipina-American writer, photographer, historian and teaching artist. In all of her work, she is curious about filling in the missing narratives and reclaiming space in a colonized world.
Come write with us: two months of TLAN events & classes
Check out our classes, free community events, and our annual conference. Scholarships are available.
2025 Power of Words Conference
03 October 2025 (CDT) • Unity Village, 1900 NW Blue Parkway, Unity Village, Missouri • A joyful in-person celebration of community, creativity, and the power of written, spoken, and sung language.
24 August 2025 5:00 PM • online • free and open to all!
Performances and presentations of their work by TLAN members followed by an artist talkback. Join us!
Writing Hope: Turning to the Page in Difficult Times // with Angie Ebba
10 September 2025 • Online
This class is ideal for anyone feeling overwhelmed by the world, going through a difficult period in life, or processing change, as well as those wishing to expand their creative practices or learn/practice various types of poetry. All levels of writers are welcome.
15 September 2025 • Online
A creative workshop to explore your concerns and experiences with our climate reality and nature’s intimate connection with us.
Writing the Dead // with Sharon Pajka
17 September 2025 • Online
If you’re curious, if you’re grieving, if you’ve ever whispered to a loved one who’s no longer here, or wished you could, this course is for you.
Transformative Language Arts Network Community Circles
21 September 2025 5:00 PM • online • free and open to all!
