In letter-writing, if you’re lucky or doing it right, there’s a moment that comes when you’re writing to another but really you’re writing to or for yourself. Sometimes this moment stretches and becomes the actual content of the letter: the dis-covering of yourself in the way you relate to another. In this meeting of Dis/Courses, I’d like for us to think about the ways in which our writings navigate this dynamic dual-address to the self and another(s). Can we use the function of address—this aspect of writing that forges networks of communication and community—to hold space for self-reflexive contemplation? When we address our writings, directing them so specifically into the world, might we also be opening writing to the potential of limitless, radical process—to the ongoingness of correspondence, whose ends, like any living thing, are in itself?
We may read poems and correspondences from Samuel Ace & Linda Smukler, Etel Adnan & Sarah Riggs, Gloria Anzaldúa, Natalie Diaz & Ada Limón, Emily Dickinson, Carla Harryman & Lyn Hejinian, Audre Lorde, Rosa Luxemburg, and others.
This meeting is free and open. Participants are invited to RSVP in advance to receive a packet of readings and other material to begin the conversation. Reading in advance, however, is not be required, nor is any particular education background or expertise. Come, talk about poetry and possibility, teach, learn, share, and connect more deeply with The Poetry Project community.