Concerning the Poem’s Information

A response from Edson Burton as part of Emergenc(i)es

Edson Burton Response to ‘Concerning the Poem’s Information’ from Édouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation

In this workshop Bristol's favourite poet, playright, historian and general all rounder Edson Burton will respond to ‘Concerning the Poem’s Information’ from Édouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation. Within the text Glissant contrasts the logic of computers or 'information' with poetic knowledge, in order to highlight differences between these modes of thinking/ being. What insights can poetry, and the poetic give us, that computers simply cannot? Does poetry, in some way, resist thinking that seeks to calculate and control outcomes? Or can similarities—and even alliances—be drawn between the unruly suggestiveness of poetic language, and the systematic world of computational prediction. This workshop will create time and space to respond to the short text in a collective setting, with reference to our current, historical reality.

Part of  Emergenc(i)es  Exhibition, 6th - 17th June: Control and Calculation : Inheriting Liberation : Improvised Publics