SIMON ASENCIO: LEFT / WRITE! (RESCRIPT)
New Narrative is an experimental writing movement that emerged in the San Francisco poetry scene in the late 1970s around the writings of Bruce Boone and Robert Glück and their writing workshops held at the Small Press Traffic bookstore. The term was coined by fellow poet Steve Abbott to describe these experiments that used gossip, promiscuity, fax, lists, non-narrative elements, pieces of news and slanders as vehicles to write narratives.
Emerging from the context of the civil rights, the black movement and the sexual liberation in the US, New Narrative appears as a motley crew of poets, writers and activists who examined poetic forms that could address their lives. Through personal, relational and transgressive writings, New Narrative experiments generated an active and emancipatory approach to language.
In the aftermath of the first Reagan election, members of the movement envisioned a conference to gather grassroots poetry groups and to reflect about the politics of their life and work. The Left/Write conference, held in 1981 at the Noe Valley Ministry, SF, was an attempt to elaborate political solidarity through literary practices. Partly artistic, educational and political, the conference convened 300 writers over two days through workshops, discussions, exhibitions and events. The conference took place once and was never repeated.
Left/Write! (Rescript) is a performative study situation that examines the conditions of emergence of such event, through the method of reenactment. Using the transcript of the conference as a score for conversation, reading and organizing, the research looks into ways of learning from there and then in order to examine our commitments to here(s) and now(s).
— For dates and reading list, scroll down —
Simon Asencio:
Using research methodologies specific to performance, literature and critical pedagogy, the work of Simon Asencio takes the form of performances, publications, exhibitions, collective study situations, and co-creation projects. His current research focuses on the forms of sociability generated by textual practices, particularly in their relationship between poetic practice and political engagement.
Left Write! (Rescript), installation at Bulegoa, Bilbao 2024, image: Silvia Coppola
Personal archive of poet Steve Abbott
Mon 13/01
— 13:00-19:30 open reading room of the library of affiliated books
— 18:00-19:30 presentation session
Thu 16/01
— 18:00-19:30 reading session: collective reading of Bob Perelman's The Marginalization of Poetry (1990)
Mon 20/01
— 13:00-19:30 open reading room of the library of affiliated books
— 18:00-19:30 reading session: collective reading of Kathy Acker's poets theatre play The Birth of the Poet (1985)
Thu 23/01
— 18:00-19:30 reading session: collective reading of Ntozake Shange's poets theatre play spell #7, geechee jibara quik magic trance manual for technological stressed third world people: a theatre piece (1979)
Mon 27/01
— 13:00-19:30 open reading room of the library of affiliated books
— 18:00-19:30 reading session: collective reading of Steve Benson's poets theatre play Views of Communist China (1977)
Thu 30/01
— 13:00-20:00 open reading room of the library of affiliated books
— 18:00-20:00 reenactment session