Strangeness
by Bahaar Ahsan

18th July 2026
11am - 2pm

Workshop

“Metonymy moves restlessly, through an associative network, in which associations are compressed rather than elaborated. Metonymy is intervalic, incremental— it exists within a measure. A metonym is a condensation of its context.” – Lyn Hejinian, from Strangeness

This workshop takes its title from an essay by the Language poet Lyn Hejinian, in which she insists on the anti-fetish function of metonymy: where metaphor obscures actual experience, metonym lays bare not only the phenomenal world but also the cognitive and social relations which allow for its apprehension.

In this workshop, we will close read Hejinian’s essay together and consider its critiques and counterarguments, thinking together about metonym and metaphor as ordering and disordering devices in poetry. We will consider poetry as a space where perception is laid bare, and as a space where concepts are created. We may bring in Roman Jakobson, Fredric Jameson, and others. We will read some contemporary poetry (likely: Jean Day, Simone White, Nora Fulton, Danny Hayward) and will consider how these works orient themselves to these questions. We will also write some poems of our own—mobilizing the concepts in the essay toward our own metonymic, poetic ends.

Duration: 3 hours

Pay what you can — suggested donation 10 euros.

Please register at contact_aujus@pm.me