We write to announce the transformation of the 2015 Berkeley Poetry Conference into a series of conversations, performances, and readings titled Crosstalk, Color, Composition: A Berkeley Poetry Conference. The conference we had originally imagined and long-planned for no longer appears tenable but we see, in the failure of our original plan, an opportunity to open up new channels of conversation and to feature a new constellation of poets. To that end, we are organizing a new multi-day event around readings given by and seminars led by several poets of color of national reputation. The readings and seminars will take place at UC Berkeley and off-site partners.
The conference will run from Monday, June 15th, through Thursday, June 18th. Every event will be free and open to the public, and we invite everyone who can to come and share ideas.
The conference will consist of four evening readings by the visiting poets and four morning and afternoon seminars that will be led by local and visiting poets. Topics will include Poetry and Social Life; Reconfiguring Subjectivity; Environmental Justice and Poetry; Geographies of Struggle; Asian-American Avant-Garde; Post-Crisis Poetry; and Race and Coalitions in Poetry. The seminars will open with brief presentations and a set of shared texts (available in hard copy at the conference and as PDFs via the “Seminar” schedule). Discussion will ensue.
We want to emphasize that the goal of the conference’s design is to enlarge national paradigms for reading and writing poetry by creating a space in which poets of color may define the issues central to their poetry and imagination. Crosstalk, Color, Composition will provide a forum for poets, scholars, and the interested public to question the intersections between race, imagination, artistic practice, community, and the institutional lives of poetry, among others. We believe that such conversations are not simply matters of special interest, but have implications for national literature. We are committed to supporting an event that will be both intellectually challenging and creatively generative.
