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.…