Turning History into Folklore

Myths and folklore are rooted in history, in humans searching to fill holes in our understanding with magic. Writers and dreamers since the very beginning of language have been doing this. It’s the reason we have mermaids and vampires, the origins of Hamilton, and great literary works like The Odyssey. Arguably, every writer who writes about the past is making it mythic, in one way or another, as the past is not entirely knowable.

In this generative workshop, we will challenge ourselves to write poems in which we put magic into the holes in the historical record. Afterall, as Oscar Wilde said, “the one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.” We will, together, imagine surreal and interesting symbols in a story that, like all of history, is unknowable. We will discuss the ethics of mining true stories, and the reality of subjective and objective “truth.” How much do we owe to the truth? How much can altering a foundational story, like that of the founding fathers or westward expansion, change?

There is no better time to interrogate the past than now. American history is built on myths written into our history books. What is the truth? Who gets to record and reckon with these stories? Which stories get told? I explored these questions in my recent book on the life of Annie Oakley, America’s first superstar, Lady Wing Shot. Together, let’s write into empty spaces in other well-known stories that shape our understanding of history and politics. Feel free to bring any stories that haunt you, but I will supply lots of inspiration!  

About Sara Moore Wagner

Sara Moore Wagner is the author of three prize winning full length books of poetry, Lady Wing Shot, winner of the 2023 Blue Lynx Prize (2024), Swan Wife (Cider Press Review Editors Prize, 2022), and Hillbilly Madonna (Driftwood Press Manuscript Prize, 2022), and of two chapbooks, Tumbling After (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2022) and Hooked Through (2017). She is also a 2022 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award recipient, a 2021 National Poetry Series Finalist, and the recipient of a 2019 Sustainable Arts Foundation award. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals and anthologies including Gulf Coast, Smartish Pace, Waxwing, Beloit Poetry Journal, and The Cincinnati Review, among others. In 2023, she became the Managing Poetry Editor of Driftwood Press.