Poetry, Movement & Visual Art with Letta Neely, Christine Bennett and Michael Dowling

You are invited to step out of your day-to-day life and to be part of one of our artistic retreats. The retreats ask you to recognize that the role of the artist is meaningful enough to nurture. They revolve around bringing the creative into our daily lives, permitting life to revolve around the creative self.

Too often we accept daily life as a distraction rather than an invitation to our work as artists to reveal the deeper, often hidden meaning of our existence. Participants will be invited to be mindful that each moment in our lives offers us the material for creation.

During studio time artists work alone or near one another. During the retreat individual conversation will be held as the facilitators visit the artists. The surroundings provide magical settings within which the artist may work with the subject and in the style and form that most engages them. Opportunities abound to consider the landscape, architecture, figure, still life or simply the light as a subject. Artists work in many mediums, poetry, dance, performance, and visual arts. One of the highlights of the retreat is creating a multidiscipline installation in the 12th century chapel, San Jacapo!

Guided conversations are held on two afternoons (Dialogues with Art) and several evenings after dinner (Artist Vision), where the facilitators weave the community of artists together with elements of story, poetry, and the experiences of the day. These conversations may examine issues dealt with by artists such as: experiencing art, learning to talk about each other’s art, our role as artists in our society, accessing and recognizing our vision, special needs we have as artists, and talking about our work with others.

For inquiries about the retreats, please contact us at: info@spokeart.org

Italy – April 7 -April 23, 2026

Movement, Poetry, and Visual Art
– Last two Nights in Florence

Our 24th retreat will be held at a monastery in San Gimignano, a medieval Tuscan village filled with towers and surrounded by rolling hills. The Benedictine Sisters who offer their hospitality have become dear friends during our previous retreats.

In San Gimignano, you will find many beautiful places to work outdoors. The monastery offers their private walled olive garden for working as well. Cafés, restaurants, and shops are all within a short, if hilly, walk. The views are breathtaking, and the light is magical.

San Gimignano is several weeks ahead of our late New England Spring. While evenings and mornings may be cool enough to require a jacket or layers, the afternoons can be warm enough for short sleeves. The grass is green, flowers are blooming, and trees are leafing out.

Fees $3200

FEES DO NOT INCLUDE AIRFARE ESTIMATED AT $1000.

FEES INCLUDE:

Individual and group instruction
Lodging, double ensuite rooms with single beds.
Continental breakfast, lunch, and seven dinners.
Transportation between airport and lodging, upon arrival and departure, available for selected flight only

Key dates

Sign-up opens: July 24, 2025
Deposit due: $1600 November 15, 2026
Flight booked: to be determined.
Balance due: $1600 February 1, 2026

Facilitators

Letta Neely is a poet, playwright, and cultural worker whose art centers Black queer resilience, memory, and collective liberation. She is the author of Juba and Here (both Lambda Literary Award finalists) and the chapbooks When We Were Mud and gawd and alluh huh sistuhs. Her plays—including Hamartia Blues, Last Rites, and Shackles & Sugar—have been produced in Boston, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Most recently, her one-woman show Pulling It All Into The Current won Best Drama at the 15th season of the United Solo Theatre Festival in New York City.

Letta’s literary work has appeared in Sinister Wisdom, African Voices, Does Your Mama Know?, The World in Us, Role Call, and numerous other anthologies and journals. Named one of The Root’s Top 30 Black Performance Poets, she has received a New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellowship, the Pat Parker Award Scholarship from ZAMI, and grants from NEFA, Live Arts Boston, and the National Performance Network Documentation & Storytelling Fund.

She is Co-Artistic Director of Fort Point Theatre Channel, editor/script writer for Ife Franklin’s The Slave Narratives of Willie Mae, and host of FireWater Poetics at Emerson College. Letta has over 25 years of teaching experience in grassroots, community, and academic settings, and her teaching style is generative, embodied, strengths-based, and deeply relational.

Poetry Workshops with Letta Neely

What does it mean to write down into the marrow of our lives—the truths that ache, the joys that pulse, the stories we carry in our bones? In this generative and revision-centered workshop, poet and playwright Letta Neely invites participants to dig deep, uncovering the raw material of memory, imagination, and place. Together, we will move poems from first sparks and drafts into fully realized, polished pieces ready to stand in the world as part of a cohesive chapbook.

The workshops balances group work and individual attention. Through writing prompts, craft discussions, and feedback circle, participants will explore structure, voice, and editing strategies. Additionally, during one-on-one sessions Letta will support each writer in shaping their chapbook’s arc—curating, ordering, and refining work into a singular offering.

Writing Down the Marrow is for poets ready to take their drafts seriously, to listen hard, and to let their work grow its full wingspan. Expect a space that is rigorous and tender, rooted in strengths-based feedback, and steeped in communal practice. Together, we will create, edit, and prepare our chapbooks for the page—and perhaps even for the stage.

Christine Bennett, Movement Facilitator, has collaborated with Michael Dowling for 20+ years, including proscenium stage and large-scale site-specific installation performances. She is a Professor of Dance at Curry College with a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Smith College and a BFA with honors from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. She was Founder and Artistic Director of Boston-based Bennett Dance Company from 1996-2007. From 2010-2014, Christine was Assistant Director for the Office for the Arts Dance Program at Harvard University. Christine has also taught at Smith, Hampshire, and Mount Holyoke Colleges; the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School; Boston University; The Yard on Martha’s Vineyard; Roger Williams University; and has led master classes throughout the Northeast. She has received choreographic recognition and/or funding from the New England Foundation for the Arts (Touring Support, Meet the Composer Support), Massachusetts Cultural Council, Dance Umbrella, The Boston Center for the Arts, Jacob’s Pillow, and The Dance Center of Columbia College. Christine recently completed a 200-hour teaching certification from Aligned Yoga.

Workshops with Christine Bennett

Christine will offer guided movement sessions with a focus on idea generation through physicality. We will explore and create movement, letting it speak for us as an inclusive language of empowerment for all bodies and all identities.

She will also offer yoga and meditation for those that are interested. In addition to moving through asanas, we will have the opportunity to consider topics such as waiting, integrity, struggle, breath, chant, and more, as they relate to practicing and creating.

Michael Dowling is known as one of the Commonwealth’s most innovative and courageous artists who produces visually stunning, ambitious public works of art that serve and inspire communities on many levels. His work stems from his heartfelt desire to beautify and make life better for all. Michael holds a BFA and MFA from Boston University, where he studied with Philip Guston and James Weeks.

Leading these artist retreats has become a natural extension of Michael Dowling’s work as a visionary artist and educator, where he has inspired and guided communities and artists of all ages for over thirty years.

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Artist Retreat to Italy, April 7 - April 23, 2026