School
for
Poetic
Computation
In Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet, a series of frantic and seemingly impenetrable questions descend: “My god, my god, who am I watching? How many am I? Who is I? What is the gap between me and myself?” Inspired by works from Jorge Borges, Wanda Coleman, Octavio Paz, Renee Gladman, Yanyi, Lebohang Kganye, and others, together we will spend time considering the inhabitants of selfhood, mirrors and mirrored images, alter egos, ancestry, paradoxical realities, opacity, internal myths, Janus figures, the gulf of persona, and the fringes of narrative and experimental poetics. Classes will generally take the form of open discussion guided by a close reading of the weekly reading assignments. There will be two opportunities to workshop writing in class for personal feedback. Participants do not need any formal creative writing background, nor do they need to consider themselves “professional” writers. All experience levels are welcome. Curious folk who have historically felt unwelcome in academic creative writing or English classes are highly encouraged.
The only expectations are that students engage with the weekly texts however they can, and that students read and give written feedback via google doc comments to those who submit for workshop.
Participants do not need any formal creative writing background, nor do they need to consider themselves a “professional” writer. All experience levels are welcome. Curious folk who have historically felt unwelcome in academic creative writing or English classes are highly encouraged. Abstract thinking skills a plus but not required.
Gabrielle Octavia Rucker is a poetic practitioner, writer, editor and teaching artist from the Great Lakes currently living on the Gulf Coast. Their work reflects on the complexities of inheriting not only only the unfinished business of past generations but also the silent, often overlooked burdens, such as languages and histories lost to colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade. A poet of Black American and Mexican descent, Rucker uses explorative, ritual poetics and asemic writing—a form of wordless script that suggests meaning without linguistic structure—to transcend the constraints of English, a language that is both violent (forced upon her) and limiting (not their mother tongue) in its ability to fully express their poetic intent. Their work considers the dormant and unsayable, reanimating the intangible elements that shape one’s capacity for and understanding of legibility, myth, inheritance and ritual. Rucker is a 2020 Poetry Project Fellow, a 2016 Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, and the founder of the The Seminary of Ecstatic Poetics, a non-traditional learning space for the poetically inclined. Her debut poetry collection, Dereliction (2022) is currently available via The Song Cave.
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Lara Okafor (they/them) is a writer and coder with an interest in digital security and the liberatory power of speculative fiction. They hold bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science from the University of Oslo and are an SFPC alum. Lara has many years of organising behind them, such as the digital Cutie.BIPoC Festival 2020 and the documentary project 'Loud & Proud: A Celebration Of Queer Black Voices'.
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Applications open until Applications closed on June 5, 2022.
You can expect to hear back from us about the status of your application on June 13, 2022. Please email us at admissions@sfpc.study with any questions you have.
For 7 classes, it costs $930 + processing fees, for a one-time payment. We also offer payment plans. Participants can schedule monthly payments of the same amount. First and last payments must be made before the start and end of class. *Processing fees apply for each payment.
SFPC processes all payments via Withfriends and Stripe. Please email admissions@sfpc.study if these payment options don't work for you.
For more information about what we look for in applicants, scholarships, and other frequently asked questions, please visit our applicant FAQ.
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