Naropa Workshop Readings & Prompts

My syllabus from the 2019 Naropa Summer Writing Program's "Against Atrocity: Nomadology & the War-Machine" theme, including a reading list & prompts

DAY ONE

Pierre Guyotat, Eden Eden Eden – pg 18-22

French writer who served in Algerian War

Book was banned in 1970 upon release from being publicized or sold to minors; received signed petition of support including signatures by Jean Genet, Joseph Beuys, Pasolini, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, more.

Evocation of terror without sentiment or excuse. Imre Kertesz: "I regard as kitsch any representation of the Holocaust that is incapable of understanding or unwilling to understand the organic connection between our own deformed mode of life and the very possibility of the Holocaust."

EXERCISE: Write a short piece in a stream-of-consciousness style in which no plot is carried on at, but depicts the sprawl of some kind of worldwide trauma (ie: war, though you can take the concept of “war” as literally or metaphorically as you desire; any violence can be on or off the page). First person statements are allowed but the piece in general should have a macro-frame that is allowed to roam amid its parts like a god’s eye.