Breaking Open Jargon through Poetry with Sahar Romani

In 1978 the academic and critic, Raymond Williams published Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Not quite a dictionary, nor a glossary, this book explored the history and multiple uses of socially significant and contested words – Democracy, Liberal, Culture, Revolution. Inspired by Williams, in this workshop we will identify words that we consider socially and politically urgent and necessary, but also slippery and elusive in their meaning and use. We will turn to contemporary poetry to explore the tools and strategies poets use to pry open and unpack words strained with social significance. We will consider the ways we can better break open words and use them to express our idiosyncratic and universal experience.

Sahar Romani trained as a human geographer and ethnographer from Oxford University, where she received her PhD in 2015. After an enriching detour in social science scholarship, Sahar is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at New York University. She has published poems in The Offing, Asian American Writers’ Workshops, and 92Y’s Podium. Born in Seattle, she lives in Queens, New York.

Presented in conjunction with Freedom Forums 2017: A Conversation on Freedom: Personal, Artistic and Civic

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