Psychoanalysis and poetry share a significant conceptual and practical terrain: both are committed to saying the unsayable and thinking the unthought; both pay excited attention to slips of the tongue and linguistic breakdown; both have a persistent investment in sustained listening and spaces of co-presence; and both generate contentious frictions between theory and practice. This evening assembles two writers who work within both poetry and psychoanalysis — Nuar Alsadir and Claire Donato — for a conversation, reading, and improvisational investigation into the psychoanalytic dimensions of poetry and the poetics of psychoanalysis.

Anyone with a relationship to poetry and psychoanalysis is encouraged to attend: analysts, analysands, poets, readers, the broadly curious, the hesitantly skeptical, all are welcome. There will most likely be opportunities for attendees to participate in the inquiry if they are moved to do so.

This event will also be livestreamed for free on The Poetry Project’s YouTube channel.