This lecture and workshop aims to examine the notion of “writer’s block” as a construct stemming from capitalistic anxieties with production—and how arbitrary expectations “to produce” can cause shame, guilt, and self-deficiencies that stunt and shun the creative mind. We will seek and investigate new and more forgiving modes of composition found in the rich and potent power of elongated listening and meditation on language. Ultimately, we will redefine for ourselves a more idiosyncratic definition of “work” that resists quantification and materiality, a bridge where creativity and daily living become mutually nourishing forces.
Poet and essayist Ocean Vuong is the author of Night Sky with Exit Wounds, winner of the 2016 Whiting Award. A Ruth Lilly fellow from the Poetry Foundation, he has received honors from the Lannan Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, The Elizabeth George Foundation, The Academy of American Poets, and the Pushcart Prize. Vuong's writings have been featured in The Atlantic, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Poetry, The Village Voice, and American Poetry Review, which awarded him the Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he lives in New York City.