In Advance of Bhanu Kapil at the Feminist Poetics and Emergent Pedagogies Symposium

A recent introduction for Bhanu Kapil has been published at Jacket2. Written by Margaret Rhee, co-organizer with Andrea Quaid of the 2018 Feminist Poetics and Emergent Pedagogies Symposium at Bard Los Angeles, the intro recalls the first time the two met. "In 2014, we were both presenting at the Asian avant-garde festival organized by Sean Labrador y Manzano at CIIS in San Francisco," writes Rhee. More:

Bhanu was the keynote poet, and I had been extremely excited to hear her speak after falling in love with the brilliance of her collection Humanimal: A Project for Future Children. After I presented my work, she made a point to say kind words about the poetry project. It meant so much, the weight of her words. It was a type of feminist pedagogy difficult to translate now. Because it is not language. 

She was kind, generous, and luminous. She was brilliant, evoking, and beautiful. It was a presence and an exchange off the page. We had exchanged information, and a week or so later, I received in the mail a small package. A kind note, from Bhanu, to encourage my writing, and two tarot cards —one of protection, the other sunshine.

It is the kind of act that may be forgotten by the sender, but is felt ostensibly for a long long time by the receiver, which transforms the relations between mentor-mentee into a gift, a transmission, and kindness. It’s a gesture so deceptively simple yet tragically rare...

Find the rest of this gesture at Jacket2.