Reading
S*an D. Henry-Smith + julie ezelle patton
What’s going on in independently published, avant-garde and experimental U.S. poetry today? What forms of poetry have emerged in the wake of the financial crisis, amid the rise of fascism, the resurgence of the left, and the renewed social antagonisms produced by the dehumanization and destitution of late global capitalism? What is the current shape of formally inventive and socially engaged poetry? What—if any—is the contemporary shape of what historian Michael Denning has referred to as the cultural front, the side of the collective fight against fascism taking place through media and the arts?
"The future exists for the most part in the present" aims to situate poetry in our current social, economic and political conjuncture. We want to think hard about who’s writing it, who’s reading it, what it’s good for, what’s new and different, and how the contemporary landscape of experimental and avant-garde poetry relates to other creative and liberatory traditions. Drawing on the insight from Bernadette Mayer’s Utopia that gives the symposium its title, we’re eager to think materially and speculatively about the present by gathering in community to tend to poetry’s ability to shape new imaginaries—ones where formal inquiry remains inseparable from the social and political stakes of the future.
This symposium will take place over three evenings: Monday 11/2, Wednesday 11/4, and Friday 11/6. Readers and further details TBA. Mark your calendars!
