Intellectual Property by Aea Varfis-van Warmelo

10 Jan 2024 7-8.30pm

Overview

With Aea Varfis-van Warmelo, Oluwaseun (Seun) Olayiwola, Amy McCauley, Orit Gat and more tbc.

This event will mark the launch of a pamphlet of new poems by Aea Varfis-van Warmelo, and will include readings from the collection, guest poets, and an in-conversation.

Intellectual Property is a series of long-form poems that propose the law of intellectual property as poetry’s dark twin — both forms task language with the burden of shaping the intangible, and both forms consider human ingenuity to be of infinite value. Weaving through a series of landmark disputes, the poems apply the laws of intellectual property to our private lives and seek to determine what constitutes an idea, and whether we can ever own one. Language’s brutal extreme is usually reserved for the law — this pamphlet explores what happens when it infiltrates poetry.

BIOGRAPHIES

Oluwaseun (Seun) Olayiwola is a poet, critic, choreographer and performer based in London. His poems have been published and anthologized in: The Guardian, The Poetry Review, PN Review,  Oxford Poetry, TATE, bath magg, 14poems, Re:creation, and Queerlings.  As a Ledbury Poetry Critic, he’s written reviews for the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Times Literary Supplement, the Poetry School, Magma, Poetry Birmingham, and the Poetry Book Society. His poetry has been commissioned by the Royal Society of Literature and Spread the Word. His debut poetry collection is forthcoming from Granta (UK) and Soft Skull Press (US).

Amy McCauley’s publications include Oedipa (Guillemot Press, 2018) 24/7 Brexitland (No Matter Press, 2020)  Propositions (Monitor Books, 2020) ‘I am a poet and lyricist. My writing practice tests the possibilities of reworking canonical myths, forms and ideas, and enters into a dialogue with these existing narratives, structures and registers. Oedipa, for example, reworks the myth of Oedipus and reimagines the narrative through the lenses of feminism and psychoanalysis. 24/7 Brexitland takes the language around Brexit and channels it into the form of an extended Lord’s Prayer. Propositions is a sideways response to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.’

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