AFRONOWISM: writing abolition futures

event details 

Virtual performance/poetic contextualization by rapper and poet maassai
Writing workshop/group meditation supplemented with a sound bath by Rena Anakwe and advice on letter writing from P, a dear friend of PTP founder GENG, and his experience inside the prison system.
Lecture by Dr. Michael Ralph, Director of Africana Studies at New York University

schedule
August 22nd, 6 pm ET 
6:00 | Spoken word by maassai
6:15 | Prison reflections w/ P
6:35 | Prison letter workshop, Sound bath by Rena Anakwe
7:15 | Abolition futures discussion w/ Dr. Michael Ralph 
7:55 | Closing Performance by maassai

*we encourage participants to donate $15.00 in support of participating artists. 

Please rsvp below, the workshop is by registration. 
further information

Everlasting Time, a small poetry publishing collective, has compiled a list of political prisoners currently held in the United States. In exchange for writing a letter, they are offering to send participants a work of original art made by one of many contributing artists. The workshop is a time to begin the process of composing a letter. Participants will have the opportunity to read the stories of these prisoners so unjustly held, accompanied by music in the form of a ‘soundbath’, a guided meditation led by Rena Anakwe.

Through poetry, reflections by a former inmate, and discussion with Dr. Michael Ralph, participants will be given guidance in the writing process and advice on communicating with the incarcerated. Dr. Michael Ralph’s work integrates political science, economics, history, and medical anthropology through an explicit focus on debt, slavery, insurance, forensics, and incarceration. His most recent book, Fishing, portrays a method of communication in which inmates exchange objects and messages between cells using dental floss or long threads from their bedsheets. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A, open to participants.

PTP (Purple Tape Pedigree) is a collective-plus-label that emphasizes visceral and experimental music and community organizing as a way to acknowledge and process trauma collectively.