An evening of poetry readings with Bhanu Kapil, Precious Okoyomon, Nisha Ramayya and P. Staff.
THE SKY IS A GENIUS took place in the gallery space of P. Staff’s exhibition On Venus. On Staff’s Venus, ‘life is chemically modified and sensorially charged in an alternate state of non-life or near-death.’ The poets explored themes of structural violence, registers of harm and the exchange between fluids, bodies and chemicals examined throughout the show.
Bhanu Kapil is the Judith E. Wilson poetry fellow at the University of Cambridge, 2019-2020. Three new books are forthcoming in the next five months: How To Wash a Heart (Pavilion Poetry), a new edition of Incubation: a space for monsters (Kelsey Street Press) and a speculative novella based on Hildegard Von Bingen, part of of a new translation by Huw Lemmey, Unknown Language (Ignota Books). Bhanu also maintains a poetry blog, The Vortex of Formidable Sparkles.
Precious Okoyomon is a Nigerian American artist and writer living and working in New York. Her first book Ajebota (2016) was published by Bottlecap Press, and her second book But Did U Die? is forthcoming from Wonder in the spring of 2020.
Nisha Ramayya grew up in Glasgow and is currently based in London. Her debut collection States of the Body Produced by Love is published by Ignota Books (September 2019). She is a member of the ‘Race & Poetry & Poetics in the UK’ research group and a lecturer in Creative Writing at Queen Mary University of London.
P. Staff is an artist based in Los Angeles, USA, and London, UK. Their exhibition On Venus at the Serpentine North Gallery is open from 8 November 2019 to 9 February 2020. A new monograph is to be published by the Serpentine Galleries and LUMA Foundation in 2020, featuring writing by Staff, Claude Adjil, Eva Hayward, Eula Biss, Precious Okoyomon and Bhanu Kapil.
