Sundress Academy for the Arts Presents "Decolonizing the Diagram: An Experimental Poetry Workshop"

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “Decolonizing the Diagram: An Experimental Poetry Workshop,” a workshop led by Felix Lecocq on February 21^st, 2024, from 6-7:30 PM. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta).

If diagrams are visual representations of knowledge, this class asks: Whose knowledge and for whom? In academia, medicine, and law, the diagram has been used to categorize, racialize, and essentialize bodies of color, as well as queer/trans/disabled bodies. In this class, we will write poems that decolonize the diagram.

Inspired by poets such as Kiki Nicole, Jenifer Sang Eun Park, and Anthony Cody, we will explore how diagrams can be used in poetry to draw out tension, relationship, symmetry, and movement between ideas and images. We will use these discoveries to guide our own poem/diagram creations that subvert traditional logics and knowledge.

Participants of all levels of experience are welcome.

While there is no fee to participate in this workshop, those who are able and appreciative may make donations directly to Felix Lecocq via Venmo @felix-lecocq.

Close-up portrait of a young Vietnamese person with short dark hair and a slight smile. He is wearing an earring depicting a burning cop car.

Felix Lecocq is a writer, game designer, former SAFTA resident, and current Tin House Workshop Reading Fellow. He has taught experimental poetry workshops with the Chicago Asian Writers Workshop, and in May 2023, he independently organized a digital poetry workshop entitled “game design for poets” to raise money for the Chicago Abortion Fund. You can find his work in ANMLY, Black Warrior Review, and Joyland, and on his website at www.felixlecocq.com.

This event is brought to you in part by grants provided by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry and the Tennessee Arts Commission.