SPAM ZINE POETRY WORKSHOP - Bouncing Trash From A Great Height

“Why bounce trash from a great height?” asked Edwin Morgan in ‘From the Video Box’, a long poem in sections taking the form of a poetic dumping ground for audience responses to televisual and media culture. Morgan’s question will hang over this writing workshop like a hydraulic bin lifter ready to tip at any second. Practical writing exercises may draw on the abandoned detritus of Bernadette Mayer’s ‘Bad Poetry Contest’, the boggy sump of a foul poetic drainage system leading directly from the Trash School (laji shipai) and poets such as Dianqiu Gujiu, Fan Si, and Xu Xiangchou, and the “down on the sidewalk” aesthetic of Wayne Kaumualii Westlake. We’ll ask what it means to be attentive to channels of waste circulation and the processes by which trash gets designated as such. We’ll play with the idea of trash as an archive, encouraging participants to explore preserving, iconising or fixing the evanescent. Landfill barbie poems, carbon dioxide poems, anti-poems and non-poems welcome. _ About the tutors: @colinjherd is a poet and Lecturer in CW at University of Glasgow. His books include Too Ok (BlazeVOX 2011), Glovebox (Knives Forks and Spoons, 2013), Click & Collect (Boiler House, 2017) Swamp Kiss (Red Ceilings 2018) and You Name It (Dostoyevsky Wannabe 2019). He is the editor of Edwin Morgan Centenary Collection (2020) and co-editor with Sam Small of the two volume All Becomes Art (2022) and with Ruthie Kennedy and Tommy Pearson – Glasgow Cities (2022). @fredspoliar (they/she/any) is on a break from research on political aesthetics of waste at University of Glasgow. Their poetry book With the Boys was published by SPAM Press in 2021, and their pamphlets include goodlands (Veer2 2022) and Sans Soleil (Earthbound x Mermaid Motel) with SPAM editrix Maria Sledmere. Read some recent poems at trilobite. Head to #BrilliantVibratingInterface in bio for tix! 💫 Photo of Colin by @sean.p.campbell Poster by @cherry_melancholic ⚡️ Supported by @edmorgantrust