Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
http://www.egs.edu
Stefano Harney and Fred Moten
Return and Betrayal: The Anti-colonial as an Open Field
There is a passage in an essay by the poet Charles Olson where he speaks of open field poetry as a poetry that operates through the breath. Breath runs both ways, in and out. It gathers and it disperses. But what it gathers and what it disperses is an open question. What it lets in may not be what it let out. We will begin with the historic 1965 poetry conference in Berkeley, California where Olson presents his poetry and his thoughts on poetry, a conference from which Baraka was conspicuously absent. We will continue with Baraka’s inquiry into the role of the poet, and by extension the leader, in projecting for the people. This question becomes direct in the work of Andaiye on George Lamming’s seminal novel before we move to other modalities of return that eschew the presumption of seeing for the people, such as in the work of Tom Dent and Fahima Ife. Finally we will consider this question in its (im)proper place, the revolutionary situation, in this case in Guyana.
https://pact.egs.edu/schedule/
http://www.egs.edu
Stefano Harney and Fred Moten
Return and Betrayal: The Anti-colonial as an Open Field
There is a passage in an essay by the poet Charles Olson where he speaks of open field poetry as a poetry that operates through the breath. Breath runs both ways, in and out. It gathers and it disperses. But what it gathers and what it disperses is an open question. What it lets in may not be what it let out. We will begin with the historic 1965 poetry conference in Berkeley, California where Olson presents his poetry and his thoughts on poetry, a conference from which Baraka was conspicuously absent. We will continue with Baraka’s inquiry into the role of the poet, and by extension the leader, in projecting for the people. This question becomes direct in the work of Andaiye on George Lamming’s seminal novel before we move to other modalities of return that eschew the presumption of seeing for the people, such as in the work of Tom Dent and Fahima Ife. Finally we will consider this question in its (im)proper place, the revolutionary situation, in this case in Guyana.
https://pact.egs.edu/schedule/
