As a rule, every poet is self-taught. This does not mean that writing cannot be learned. With a keen eye on visual arts, the aim of this masterclass is to create the conditions for an outpouring of originality; to explore words and make them express what they seek to keep silent. 

This masterclass will draw on contributions made by the poet Comte de Lautréamont, on the Dadaism of Tristan Tzara and Hugo Ball, the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp, the Futurism of Filippo Marinetti and Carlo Carrà, the Surrealism of André Breton and Salvador Dalí, on the experimentation of Kurt Schwitters and John Cage, on the experimental writing of the Oulipians – who, with Raymond Queneau and Georges Perec, opened literature up to mathematics and its constraints, and to taking a playful approach to writing and its extraordinary possibilities. It will draw on the Fluxus art community of the 1960s and 1970s too, and the CoBrA movement of the late 1940s, on the Italian Novissimi movement, and others.

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