Well, while I am here I’ll do the work – / and what’s the Work? / To ease the pain of living. / Everything else, drunken / dumbshow. – Allen Ginsberg, Memory Gardens.
Join us to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University with two panels on “keeping the world safe for poetry.” These include History, Lineage & Archive and Pedagogy, Performance & Outcomes in the Anthropocene. Poets will address, among other things, the war on memory, activism, cross-genre pedagogies, and the cultural legacies of Allen Ginsberg, Harry Smith, and Amiri Baraka at Naropa.
Founded in 1974 by poets Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, and Diane diPrima, Naropa has continued its lineage of experimental poetics, inquiry, and activism with a remarkable resident and guest faculty, as well as many esteemed graduates. The first Buddhist-inspired university in the West, it engenders principles of non-competitive education and the importance of artistic and spiritual community. The Kerouac School has taken heart from the practices of Black Mountain College and Outrider communities throughout the poetry world.
1-3pm: History, Lineage & Archive
Featuring: Alan Gilbert, David Henderson, Vincent Katz, Rachel Levitsky, Eileen Myles, Jena Osman, and Anne Waldman (Moderator).
3:30-5:30pm: Pedagogy, Performance & Outcomes in the Anthropocene
Featuring: Ammiel Alcalay (Moderator), Peter Hale, Erica Hunt, Lisa Jarnot, Michelle Naka Pierce, Anne Waldman, and Matvei Yankelevich.
A reading and performance will follow at 8pm at The Poetry Project.
This event will be livestreamed. Click this link to view the livestream, starting at 1:00pm on November 5.
Cosponsored by Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative; The Poetry Project; the PhD Program in English.
