Upcoming Kundiman Events:

 Bewilderment: a Poetics and an Ethics with Jennifer S. Cheng - Multi-Genre Craft Class

Saturday, April 23rd, 2022
3:00 PM–6:00 PM ET

“My poetics, which is also my worldview, revolves around something contradictory in how darkness and bewilderment is where we find ourselves closer to truth, perhaps because our lives are so constrained elsewhere by an emphasis on linearity and certainty that we need its opposite; or perhaps moreover because there is knowledge that lives in the unconscious and in the body; and perhaps in part because truth itself always carries a shadow, an unsayable complexity and opacity”
––Jennifer S. Cheng, The Rumpus: “What is Being Charted Here? Talking with Jennifer S. Cheng”

What does it mean, especially as Asian Americans, to invite Fanny Howe’s concept of bewilderment into our poetics/aesthetics, our writing practice, and even how we approach the day? In this class, we will explore critical and creative texts while paying attention to how uncertainty, the unknowable, and the unsayable might relate to us particularly as writers from marginalized experiences—and the ways we connect with our artistic processes, our aesthetics, our bodies, our histories, our ancestors.

Toward this end, we will look at texts by writers such as Audre Lorde, Édouard Glissant, Tanizaki Junichiro, Jen Soriano, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Diana Khỏi Nguyễn, Don Mee Choi, Bhanu Kapil, Victoria Chang, and Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint. Then, we will continue our exploration by experimenting bewilderingly with guided writing exercises.

eligibility:

This craft class is open to all Asian American. The non-refundable tuition fee is $50. This class will be held over Zoom. There are scholarship spots available, and the applications are open through Friday, April 1st.

Registration for this class is now closed.