After traveling to four states in two months, my spring speaking mini-tour ended with a final virtual talk and blog post for ACT (famous for their college entrance tests). The summer kicked off with a story at TALE: NYC’s Finest Storytelling, and we’re settling into summer in the East Village with Tompkins Square Park as our living room, so come on by and share a bench surrounded by sounds and scents!
As you’ve probably surmised, smell awareness and sensory diversity is what AP and me are all about. So I was delighted to meld the two in “Designing with Smell in Mind: Architecture’s Neglected Sense” where I spoke with architects, artists, curators (including Andreas Keller of Olfactory Art Keller), and DeafBlind writer friends to think about the possibilities of smell-scaping. PS – One of those DB writer friends is John Lee Clark. Delve into his award-winning poetry collection , How to Communicate, and look out for his forthcoming essay collection.
At Aromatica Poetica, More cross-sensory artistic endeavors follow, as well as a plethora of poems in celebration of National Poetry Month. And, in the interest of befriending the future, we enlisted OpenAI in some images this time around—including the following—let me know what you think!
A Stellar Summer Bouquet
❇ “I Never Labeled My Spices: An Elegy To Olfactory” * Nonfiction * Alice Eakes
❇ “Car With Cake” * Fiction * Mike Lewis-Beck
❇ Sensory Transposition: A Triadic Exchange Between Ron Hutt, Andreas Keller and Anna Novakov
❇ “A Night Out at the Anosmia Restaurant” & Other Poems by Philip Raisor
❇ “A Septic Tank” and Other Poems by Joan Mazza
❇ “Stars or Quanta” * Poems * Yuan Changming
❇ “Recess” and “Dispensation” * Poetry * John Muro
❇ “Emily as Cometary Grains” * Poetry * Darren Demaree
❇ “Willow Tree Poem” & More Plus Recordings by Michael Lee Johnson
California Highlights
In April I had the pleasure of visiting the Braille Institute in LA, where I had a lovely conversation with the inimitable Maggie Nelson. I also caught up with dear friend and fantastic artist, Nellie King Solomon, who kindly took the below photo, and met blind magician Chad Allen in person for the first time. And in May, Alabaster and I visited my graffiti portrait in New York City Hall!
Finally, I’m excited to announce a new collaboration with the San Francisco Lighthouse. This year we’re offering a series of writing workshops on Zoom with professional blind authors: Stephen Kuusisto, James Tate Hill, Andrew Leland (look out for his forthcoming book, The Country of the Blind), and myself. Learn more HERE.
