UNRULY: Reclaiming Our Bodies, Reclaiming Our Stories (Writing Workshop)
The Free Black Women’s Library presents
UNRULY: Reclaiming Our Bodies, Reclaiming Our Stories
A Public Reading & Writing Workshop
led by Antoinette Cooper
Sunday, April 12
3PM - 4.30PM
A debut book reading and community care space for UNRULY (Legacy Book Press, 2025), a groundbreaking poetry collection exploring Black women's experiences with medical racism, ancestral trauma, and bodily autonomy. Through selected readings, collective dialogue. and facilitated writing prompts, participants explore what it means to listen to our bodies' wisdom, slow down, and integrate our full selves.
This program creates space for Black folks to practice witness together while exploring themes of bodily autonomy, ancestral wisdom, and becoming whole. Includes trauma-informed writing exercises and community care practices.
*Age range recommended for this workshop is 16 and up
Books will be available for purchase.
Register here.
Re(claim)ing Our Bodies & Confronting Medical Racism
UNRULY on The Big Up YuSelf Show
March 30, 2025 | 4:00 PM CST / 5:00 PM EST
Virtual (YouTube Live)
A Women's History Month conversation on medical racism, Black women's autonomy, and healing from healthcare inequities, centered on UNRULY's exploration of historical and contemporary bodily reclamation.
Streaming on YouTube
UNRULY: A Book Talk with Antoinette Cooper
UNRULY at Columbia University
March 26, 2025 | 7:00-8:30 PM
Faculty House, Columbia University
Join the University Seminar on Narrative, Health, and Social Justice for a reading and conversation exploring the intersection of poetry, medicine, and collective healing in UNRULY.
RSVP by March 21
UNRULY: Poet-Abolitionist Antoinette Cooper in Conversation with Iain Pollock
February 1, 2024 | 5:00-6:30PM
Hudson Valley Books for Humanities An evening of poetry and conversation with Iain Haley Pollock exploring body, memory, and witness. Books available for purchase and signing.
UNRULY Book Launch with the Pocket Project
Join the Pocket Project for the Launch of UNRULY by Antoinette Cooper
January 28, 2025
2:00-3:30 PM ET
UNRULY Debut with Pen to Purpose Reading & Workshop
Join us for UNRULY's first public reading, followed by a decolonial writing session where we explore how words become medicine. A space for collective witness and transformation.
MoMA Writing Club: On Embodied Narratives
Explore the embodied imprints of migration and resilience amidst Jacob Lawrence and Christopher Cozier's evocative works in Gallery 520. Antoinette Cooper weaves together trauma-informed practices and narrative liberation, inviting participants to investigate how personal, ancestral, and collective memories move through us. In-person session takes place in MoMA galleries December 19.
Antoinette Cooper + Edwin Torres: Segue Reading Series
First public reading from UNRULY - medicine through memory, witness through words. Join us in person or online.
MoMA Writing Club at Home: On Embodied Narratives
Explore the embodied imprints of migration and resilience amidst Jacob Lawrence and Christopher Cozier's evocative works in Gallery 520. Antoinette Cooper weaves together trauma-informed practices and narrative liberation, inviting participants to investigate how personal, ancestral, and collective memories move through us. At-home session takes place online December 10.
Ninth Annual Alumni Poetry Reading Series
Organized by Dorothea Lasky, Writing. Featuring Antoinette Cooper '20, Anastasios Karnazes '20, Eduardo Martínez-Leyva '15, and Peter Patapis '20.
THE BODY KNOWS: WRITING AS WITNESS
James Baldwin reminds us that "the world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in." This workshop explores writing as embodied witness, drawing from somatic storytelling and collective healing practices to access the wisdom our bodies hold across generations.
UNRULY Installation at The Met Staff Art Show
UNRULY (Our bodies will not save you) appears as part of the Met Staff Art Show, a group exhibition featuring works by museum staff and volunteers. This mixed-media installation serves as an altar to the Black female body, creating a sacred space for witness and healing. Through natural elements and sacred objects, this work explores themes of ancestral memory, medical trauma, chronic illness, and embodied divinity. The installation invites contemplation without consumption.
Part of Cooper's ongoing work, including her forthcoming book UNRULY (Legacy Book Press, 2025) and TEDx Talk.
The Met Fifth Avenue
Gallery 199
November 18-December 1, 2024
Climate Consciousness Summit with The Pocket Project
Opening the 2024 Climate Consciousness Summit with sacred verse reimagining our relationship to Earth through Black feminine wisdom.
"Speaking in Tongues" Writing Workshop Series
Join writer and facilitator Antoinette Cooper for a powerful 6-session creative writing journey. Explore individual, ancestral, and collective stories in a space that centers Black and Brown voices. Open to writers of all levels, this workshop series runs from October 16 to December 4, 2024. Nurture your unique voice and honor the stories that demand to be told.