Seminar: Cult A: Elizabeth, Emily and Gwendolyn. Proper Names and Foretellings: Reading Poetry Reading Us
Mary (Polly) Gannon (NYI. Academic Director of Critical Cultural Studies)
Etcetera. Let’s pretend—that we’re readers, above all. That what and how we read matters, and can (re)make the world. Because right now the world is unrecognizable to me. It’s a horror show. Let’s pretend that, by reading, we can unmake this patriarchal horror show. That reading is also activism. That what and how we read changes us, thereby changing the lifeworlds around us, the lifeworlds flowing through us. The key word being “life.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Emily Dickinson. Gwendolyn Brooks. Sisters (triplets?) “separated at birth,” as the Hindi films would have it. Reading as (com)memoration. (Re)membering these triplets. Bringing them together again. (Because I’ve brought them together before.) Reading—smashing through borders of time, space, (so-called) race. (Not to mention gender.) Poets engender life. Make it possible. Readers engender life. Make it possible. Emily Dickinson engenders poets. Makes us possible. Etcetera. Always etcetera. Beautiful, humble word. Beautiful abyss—where life and poetry reside. Etcetera . . .