Language is My Second Language: Noise, Nonsense & Idiolects in the Community of Those Who Have Nothing in Common

Event Details: Friday, September 27, 2019, 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Any time a group of people forms through the mutual adherence to a code, the strength of that group partly derives from the exclusion of those who don’t know or don’t practice the code. In this open discussion we will talk about a group of texts that explore the dimensions of speaking and listening that transcend language’s coding function: the moments when speech is instinctual, receptive and tentative rather than self-affirming or group-affirming. Our conversation will also constitute an act of composition through writing stations and writing scores to which participants can contribute as they wish throughout the evening as an alternative to “conversing” in the strict sense. In this way, “participation” is something we will interpret broadly, or re-interpret altogether.

Readings may include Robert Kocik, Gertrude Stein, Myung Mi Kim, Ornette Coleman, Jacques Derrida, Alfonso Lingis, Pauline Oliveros, Anne Carson, and more.

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This Dis/Course meeting will be co-facilitated by Miriam Atkin, Olivia Divecchia, Tara Homasi, and Öykü Tekten

Miriam Atkin

Miriam Atkin is a poet and critic based in the Hudson Valley whose work has been largely concerned with the possibilities of poetry as a medium in conversation with avant-garde film, music, and dance. She has been known to teach writing and is a founding member of Pinsapo, an art and publishing experiment.

Olivia DiVecchia

Olivia DiVecchia is an artist working across sculpture, drawing, photography, sound and text. She is interested in the withdrawal of meaning and an excavating desire she feels in the wake of this withdrawal. Consequently she can often be found digging holes in and around New York City. She sometimes uses this translated line from a poem by Paul Celan to clarify… “Where did the way lead when it led nowhere? O you dig and I dig, and I dig through you…” She is currently pursuing her MFA in art at CUNY Hunter College. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Tara Homasi

Tara Homasi is an interdisciplinary artist based in Jamaica, NY. She is currently heavily occupied with her lost tooth and root canal. This has put her in a distanced position where she waves her left hand to poetry while holding her chin with the other. She occasionally smiles with the right side of her mouth.

Öykü Tekten

Öykü Tekten is a poet, translator, editor, and a founding member of Pinsapo Press / Collective living between Granada and New York