&Now 2019 Conference

As of May 2019, U.S. democracy is wounded by our elected representatives’ and the public’s willful illiteracy in refusing to read the 448-page heavily redacted Mueller report, investigating Russian interference into the 2016 election, the installation of Donald Trump as President, Trump’s collaboration with Russian forces, and his ensuing obstruction of the investigations. The people of this country are represented by a complicit party and a complacent party, both content to let the facts of an illegitimate president’s rise and continued corruption go the way of other outmoded literary technologies, with the actual report getting little more actual reading attention than even small press poetry publications.

The spin campaign of tweets and short statements that directly contradict and obfuscate the facts of the report have thus far triumphed in capturing the daily news cycle “narrative,” which favors flash over boredom, broadness over nuance. The Mueller report, and Mueller himself, lack the sound-bite snap necessary to sway public opinion. As William Carlos Williams predicted, “It is difficult to get the news from poems / yet men die miserable every day / for lack / of what is found there.”

Months after its release, the substantive report remains largely unread, like a required book on a student reading list, yet not like that at all. Our project--a filmed reading of the full report by poets and writers--acknowledges the literary value of the political text and the power of speech. Recognizing that real world politics may change by the time of "&Now" in September 2019, we welcome the altered meanings a shifting context will provide in our gallery presentation of the video, with 2-3 minute filmed readings of the report by over 100 luminous contemporary writers and friends of 1913 Press, giving voice to the most important literary document of our time.