Workshop companion
No Democracy without Poetry –
Operations of Togtherness
A poem will not provide answers. A poem organises relationships. It brings together elements that would not usually be brought together. It introduces interruption, repetition, uncertainty, shifts in perspective, conflict, delay, intensification, silence, and contradiction.
Decision-making also depends on relationships. This depends on who speaks, who listens, who waits, who interrupts and who decides, as well as on how different perspectives are allowed to develop.
Therefore, a poem does not tell us what to decide. Rather, it is the only appropriate tool to guide us towards a decision that emerges from togetherness. This is democracy.
On-site workshop
A two-day classroom companion. Lecturers create workshops, assign groups, time phases, and evaluate outcomes.
Online or self-study
One student or an online group works at their own pace through nine guided phases — from poem to participatory structure.
From operation to rule
Students extract operations from a poem and transform them into rules, roles, constraints, and decision procedures.