I've been listening to some of the presentations from last year's conference on Poetry and Labor, which focused on poetics and politics for poets who work outside of the academy.
Here is a link to their blog. I particularly enjoyed Andrew Joron's thoughts about aversion to labor and the elitism of breaking social expectations.
It all seems particularly relevant as we prepare to graduate and navigate and/or deny the Vocation-Job venn-diagram. If anyone already knows where they stand on any of these issues, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
This is exciting. I find it so interesting/odd that the normal role of a poet right now is to teach other people to write poetry. Anyway, I'll let you know my thoughts after reading the Joron's piece.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't understand ekklesia as a label on this post. Is there some hilarious joke I'm not getting?
I think this topic also connects to Rankine's book, in regards to thinking about our notions of the "real world." And no, no joke, I just included it as the characterization of poetry often used in the conference presentations, in contrast to labor. The calling and the job.
ReplyDeleteWhat does ekklesia mean in context of poetry? How are people using it to contrast with labor?
ReplyDeleteI had no idea it was being used outside of Christianity and the sociology of religion. What a neat word.
A few different people use it in their presentations, but I like this one the best,
ReplyDelete"i know that what i am part of here is an ekklessia, a calling out from the crowd and into the poetic body. the poetic body includes the poem itself, but it also includes this room..." –Sarah Larsen