celium classes, summer 2026
celium is frequently adding new classes and instructors. join our email list to receive periodic updates about new offerings.
Trans-Atlantic Poetics: Reading & Writing Diasporic Blackness, taught by Jzl Jmz
Sundays, July 5th-Aug 9th, 5-7pm PST
On zoom
cost: $300, $400, or $500 (sliding scale, you decide)
one free spot available. see this page for more details.
While a central tenet of diaspora is displacement, we as survivors of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade have carved histories, possibilities & futures where we landed. Black Poetics has developed into a deep, nationless patchwork of joy, resistance, & curiosity. We get the pleasure of living beyond the monolith. This course is a non-comprehensive but intentionally exploratory survey of contemporary Black poetics.
Over the course of 6 weeks, we’ll be reading, listening & watching Black writers/artists render the world as they see fit. We’ll map the ways their works are distinctly poetic & necessarily Black. We will experiment with form & voice; further expanding our unique approaches to poetry.
The syllabus will include, Essex Hemphill, Duriel Harris, Akwaeke Emezi, Grace Jones & many other Black + Queer writers.
Enroll in Trans-Atlantic Poetics here.
Ec(h)o-Feminism: Mapping the Femme On & Beyond the Body, taught by Jzl Jmz
Thursdays, July 23rd-August 27th, 5-7pm PST
cost: $400, $500, or $600 (sliding scale, you decide)
one free spot available. see this page for more details.
Mapping womanhood & femininity onto a patriarchal world can disconnect us from our bodies & the Earth. Beyond the delicate or pristine, how do we recognize our humanity in the flora & fauna that surround us? Regardless of birth, the natural world can be a guide for how to ground & edify our corporeal forms. Similarly, the destruction & disregard for the natural world can mirror the ways the Femme in society can be degraded. Still we can learn from the rot, the tectonic plates shifting, the fungus speaking across continents.
Over the course of 6 weeks, we’ll be reading, listening & watching women/non-binary writers/artists render the world as they see fit. We’ll map the ways their works locate their navigations of gender through Nature. We will experiment with form & voice; further expanding our unique approaches to poetry. The syllabus will include Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Angel Nafis, Trish Salah, Trace Peterson, Linda Gregg & many others.