The Race Within Erasure: A Master Class with Robin Coste Lewis

The valiant practice of poetic erasure has enjoyed more accolades in recent years, but the genre isn’t new, nor is it specific to poetry. In fact, erasure can be seen everywhere, in every genre and artistic medium—not just poetry—and certainly not only in the literary arts. In every way—historically, politically, aesthetically—we are constantly erasing and being erased. Entire nations and histories, even categories of identity, come and go in both fluid and violent ways. Indeed, one could argue the entire history of human beings is a history of erasure. Through a discussion of love, war and writing, this master class will focus on the means by which the practice of erasure saturates our literature, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes brilliantly, sometimes both. We will also discuss how erasure offers writers an exciting tool to better learn how to push language, and to be pushed by it. We will discuss how erasure allows us to play more, to uncover and utilize the historical and aesthetic beliefs at play in our writing.

This event is now sold out. To be added to a waitlist, please contact Elizabeth Bryant at e[email protected]. The cost to attend this master class is $10.

Robin Coste Lewis was born in Compton, California. She received an MFA from New York University and an MTS in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature from Harvard Divinity School. She is the author of Voyage of the Sable Venus (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015), winner of the National Book Award. Lewis has taught at Wheaton College, Hunter College, Hampshire College, and the NYU Low-Residency MFA in Paris. Lewis is a Cave Canem fellow and was awarded the Provost’s Fellowship at the University of Southern California. Currently, she serves as the poet laureate of Los Angeles, where she lives.

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