What is truth, and how does one speak truth in a post-fact, post-truth era? How should poetry, an art form firmly invested in fiction, artifice, as well as multiple types of truth, embrace or look askance at a contemporary moment and modality that no longer adheres to logic? In this craft talk, using the rhetorical figure of parrhesia, which means to speak candidly and boldly in the face of authority even under the threat of death, Reeves investigates how poetry and poets might utilize parrhesia as both resistance and potential engine for the creation of poems and poetry. Through consideration of texts that range from the Iliad to Solmaz Sharif's LOOK, we will examine how these texts engage and participate in both truth, parrhesia, and invention.
This project is funded in part by a grant from the Madison Arts Commission, with additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board.
This craft talk is co-sponsored by HotelRed.
