Event Type
YŌL(I) is the náhuatl word meaning to live; to come to life, to hatch. This workshop aims to create an intimate exploration of our “Mother Tongues,” and to question how we trace back our ancestry to language. What sounds were we born with? How has language shifted in the last 100 years? And how does this shift inform our poetic sensibility?
Through the exploration of these questions, etymologies of words, sounds and meditations, aided by the use of breath work, poetry experiments, rituals, and films, we will explore a resurgence of creativity and life force to rethink where language can come from.
We will read fragments of Lizette’s new book POEMAS ANTES DE NACER published by diSONARE, and those texts which influenced Lizette’s work, such as Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, as well as listening to interviews and conversations with Mixe Linguist Yásnaya Elena Aguilar Gil, and reading essays by Yoko Tawada.
This workshop invites all mediums, forms, and practices to come together. By creating an intentional space with meaning, we will also look at how books inform language and serve as a form of documentation of Mother Tongues. This workshop is intended to become a collaborative effort inviting all participants to share their work and ideas.
What is the potential to be reborn through language?
Diana Lizette Rodriguez is an experimental artist, poet, and filmmaker. Rodriguez is a graduate from Naropa University, studying at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, and Visual Arts department. Her work has been published in Womanly Magazine, Asymptote, Unstamatic, the Hong Kong Review, and others. Her films have been screened in Mexico City, San Francisco, and the Performance Space in New York City. Her book Poemas Antes de Nacer is forthcoming with diSONARE editorial. She is the founder of Calle Soledad Presa, an experimental rasquache press.
