Time of the Book

For this evening, Lynn Xu will present experiments from her book-length poem, And Those Ashen Heaps That Cantilevered Vase of Moonlight, because (she realizes) she has not finished writing it. The book remains open, with many questions, many hands, mouths, ears . . . still open. So: We will have to travel inside it—the book, the mouths, the hands, the voices . . . like an ear that is also a shell, opening its small staircase to descend into Night.

Born in Shanghai, Lynn Xu is a poet and Assistant Professor of Writing at the School of the Arts. She is the author of Debts & Lessons (2013) and And Those Ashen Heaps That Cantilevered Vase of Moonlight (2022), selected for the Poetry Center Book Award, and co-translator of Pee Poems by Yang Licai (aka Lao Yang). She has performed multidisciplinary works at 300 South Kelly Street, the Guggenheim Museum, the Renaissance Society, and Rising Tide Projects, and her work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson. She coedits Canarium Books.

The Rendez-Vous de l’Institut Series is generously supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. You will find a full calendar of the Fellows’ Talks.