Part of The Poetry Society of New York's Weekly Virtual Workshop Series.With poet Leon Barros!In her pivotal essay “The Rejection of Closure,” the late great Lyn Hejinian makes a case against traditional narrative modes of the lyric—poetry that carries a “pretension to universality” and a “tendency to cast the poet as guardian to Truth.” She argues that this “coercive, epiphanic mode” insists, even demands authority over the reader, reflecting the “authority implicit in other (social, economic, cultural) hierarchies” and thus, closing off the reader (and writer) to new possibilities of meaning and understanding.What Hejinian offers instead is a different model of poetry, one centered on “radical openness,” both in form and meaning. In this workshop, we’ll learn about Hejinian’s “open text” and its philosophical framework, read her fellow Language poets, and practice modes of writing that hope to generate, not dictate—to imagine, not define. In so doing, we hope to encounter a language that opens us to new ways of experiencing the world—“a flowering focus on a distinct infinity.”About the Instructor: Leon Barros (he/they) is an editor, poet, and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. They currently serve as the Co-EIC at Milk Press, the Poetry Society of New York’s multi-disciplinary journal. They have worked as an editor for the Berkeley Poetry Review and Moon Travel Guides, and have published with journals like Annulet, ANMLY, beestung, diaCRITICS, and more.* *This workshop will take place on Zoom.**