Common Presence: Infinite Diagonals and Finite Verticals
Peter Larkin will read from his poetry which engages with an intriguingly scarce sense of mystery which arises from trees, edge-lands and hinterlands, paradoxically providing a 'dense phenomenological incitement of trees'. John Milbank will then give a talk on 'The Eight Diagonals' of poetry with the aim of locating this mystery within a philosophical framework. The talk will argue that earth's organic crust is thin, but even thinner is a 'spiritual crust' which breaks through the organic in a series of diagonals (from culture to justice). Poetry is key to tracing these diagonals which are poetic in nature.
Parasol Unit, 14 Wharf Road, N1 7RW
7pm Thurs 2oth June
Tickets: £5/£4 conc
Biographical Notes
Peter Larkin’s three collections of poetry are Terrain Seed Scarcity, (2001), Leaves of Field (2006) and Lessways Least Scarce Among (2012). He has contributed to The Ground Aslant: an Anthology of Radical Landscape Poetry (2011) and published a book of academic essays, Wordsworth & Coleridge: Promising Losses in 2012. An interview with Edmund Hardy is available at Intercapillary Space and another has appeared (with Matthew Hall) on Cordite. A new collection Give Forest its Next Portent is due from Shearsman in 2014.
John Milbank is a theologian and poet. Beginning with Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Blackwell, 1990), Milbank’s work has developed a political and social theology. His many works of theology and philosophy include The Word Made Strange (Cambridge University Press, 1997), Being Reconciled: Ontology and Pardon (Routledge, 2003), Truth in Aquinas (co-authored with Catherine Pickstock, Routledge, 2000) and his dialogue with Slavoj Žižek, The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic? (MIT, 2009). His poetry has been collected in The Legend of Death (Cascade, 2008).
Tickets can be booked through Parasol Unit by phone, email or online through Paypal - To book your ticket please contact Lucy Britton on lucy@parasol-unit.org / 020 7490 7373 ext. 20
Please book ahead as spaces in the gallery can fill up
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