To call a piece of writing “unreadable” is to render a rather flexible, but usually damning, aesthetic judgement: too boring, too gruesome, badly written, too obscene, too dense; or in a more literal sense unable to be read, for the words therein have no meaning, have wasted away to the point of illegibility, are visually cluttered, or are otherwise restricted or inaccessible. In all of these valences, unreadability is something the writer is meant to avoid, even if it means settling for being “merely” readable. But much of the history of experimental poetry has embraced unreadability as an incredibly generative domain of creative expression, formal innovation, and political resistance. In this workshop, participants and facilitator Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué will read, respond to, and create poetry that purposefully play with forms of unreadability.

Workshop sessions will be organized by group readings and responses to works of concrete/visual poetry, collage poetry, sound poetry, transgressive writing, and digital poetry. Examples include, but are not limited to, works by Aram Saroyan, Tracie Morris, David Melnick, Tan Lin, Douglas Kearney, and Ilse Garnier. We will follow and construct generative exercises to create new poetic works that challenge our relationship to these aesthetics of unreadability, with plenty chances to share and respond to participant work.

This online workshop will meet every Sunday from February 15-March 8. It's offered on a sliding scale of $80-200.

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Register

Online: Register for zoom link