UA Poetry Center Donate Now UA Poetry Center Email SignUp


Tracie Morris
A conceptual introduction:

1. Conceptual frameworks always determine the scope and form of my poems. Particularly the improvised ones.

2. We often associate medical advances as helping the body, but here I want to emphasize the structural or conceptual dystopia of sexism that impacts the structure of the female body.

3. We will be looking at...the performative utterances of Black women poetically and in some cases, musically. The interpretation...gives us insight into how different vocal modes, sounds and tones are understood by the listener and reader.

4. Philly! If I ate cheesesteak I'd be in heaven but as it is, I'll be happy to be back east with the hard core language school posse as they beat me into submission before I join the club!

5. The text is the body. The body tests text.

6. Racial and sexual power dynamics have not changed for 500 years, Morris says, and she doens't expect a change for 500 more.

7. The requirements are consistent attendance and promptness (this is mandatory. No late papers will be accepted and no incompletes are offered for this class.

Bio:

Tracie Morris is an interdisciplinary poet who has worked extensively as a sound artist, writer and multimedia performer. Her installations have been presented at the Whitney Biennial and the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. Tracie is the recipient of numerous awards for poetry and performance and has contributed to, and been written about in, several anthologies of literary criticism. She holds an MFA in poetry from Hunter College and a PhD in Performance Studies from New York University. Dr. Morris is currently Visiting Professor of English at Temple University and the CPCW Fellow in Poetics and Poetic Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.

Video:
Audio:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Conceptual Poetry and Its Others Symposium is made possible by grants from the Arizona Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Poets & Writers. We are also grateful for Symposium support from the Arizona Inn; College of Humanities; Book Stop Used Books, and Friends of the Poetry Center, especially Helen S. Schaefer.