Upcoming Kundiman Events:
Feminism & Queer Politics in Poetry
with Margaret rhee
April 3rd–May 22nd
Saturdays, 12:00 PM–2:30 PM ET
“There’s a lot of different avenues or expressions that feminists have taken to advocate for change and expression and I think poetry has been one form that certainly has been utilized… If we think of early feminists of the 60s and 70s like Audrey Lorde or Gloria, [they] really used poetry as a means to express for change as well as theory… and I really look to feminists like Audrey Lorde as inspiring models…for their transformative work.”
––Margaret Rhee, Ideas on Fire: “Imagine Otherwise: Margaret Rhee on Queer Feminist Robot Poetry”
Lorde, Rich, Cha, and Anzaldua: The feminist poets working in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s were not only writing in poetry but in theory and conceptual writing. What is the connection between poetry, theory, power, and hybrid forms?
This 8-week workshop will engage in close readings and discussion of the essays, poetry, and hybrid writing of four feminist poets: Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Gloria Anzaldua. With a collective exploration of each thinker and poet, the workshop will have a special emphasis on the connection of their respective work to Asian American feminism and queer politics and other allied identities, communities, and movements in our contemporary moment. Poets in the workshop will write poetry and short theoretical essays exploring the multiple facets of concept, idea, and political impulse. Inspired by each poet, the class will workshop their own individual writings with a focus on clarity, style, politics, argument, poetics, and feminist “translation” across genre and form.
Readings:
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
The Collected Poems by Audre Lorde
Essential Essays: Culture, Politics, and the Art of Poetry by Adrienne Rich
The Dream of a Common Language by Adrienne Rich
An Atlas of a Difficult World by Adrienne Rich
Dictee by Teresa Hak Kyung Cha
The Dream of the Audience edited by Constance Lewallen
Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldua
Selections from The Gloria Anzaldua Reader and This Bridge Called My Back
eligibility:
This workshop is open to Asian American writers, and students must be able to attend all 8 sessions of the workshop. The non-refundable tuition fee is $495. This workshop will be limited to 12 participants and will be held over Zoom. There is one scholarship spot available, and the application is open through March 18th.
Registration for this class is now closed.
FACULTY:
Margaret Rhee is a poet, scholar, and new media artist. She is the author of the poetry collection Love, Robot named a 2017 Best Book of Poetry by Entropy Magazine and awarded a 2018 Elgin Award by the Science Fiction Poetry Association and the 2019 Best Book Award in Poetry by the Asian American Studies Association. Her completed and in-progress works include monographs “How We Became Human: Race, Robots, and the Asian American Body” (under review), “Poetry Machines: Letters to a Future Reader,” and “Hacking the Black/White Binary” a special issue for Ada: A Journal of Gender, Feminism, and New Media co-edited with Dr. Brittney Cooper. Fellowships include the Kathy Acker Fellowship from Les Figues Press, the AAR Fellowship with the Electronic Literature Organization, the College Fellowship in Digital Practice in the English Department at Harvard University. She received her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in ethnic studies with a designated emphasis in new media studies. She taught at the University of Oregon, Harvard University, and the University at Buffalo—SUNY where she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Study at SUNY Buffalo and she co-leads the Palah 파랗 Light Lab a creative space which fosters poetry, participation, and pedagogy through technology and equity. She is a Kundiman Fellow.