Intellectual Property by Aea Varfis-van Warmelo
With Aea Varfis-van Warmelo, Oluwaseun (Seun) Olayiwola, Amy McCauley, Orit Gat and Will Harris.
This event will mark the launch of a pamphlet of new poems by Aea Varfis-van Warmelo, and will include readings from the collection, guest poets, and an in-conversation.
Intellectual Property is a series of long-form poems that propose the law of intellectual property as poetry’s dark twin — both forms task language with the burden of shaping the intangible, and both forms consider human ingenuity to be of infinite value. Weaving through a series of landmark disputes, the poems apply the laws of intellectual property to our private lives and seek to determine what constitutes an idea, and whether we can ever own one. Language’s brutal extreme is usually reserved for the law — this pamphlet explores what happens when it infiltrates poetry. Running from the Leibniz-Newton Calculus Controversy, to the Son of Sam Law, the poems deftly position the cut of the law against the inner workings of a teenage boy, and young pregnant woman. These figures’ relationships and choices pivot between the juridical and the private.
The current exhibitions at CCA, by Esteban Jefferson and Karrabing Film Collective, will be on view from 6:30pm.
BIOGRAPHIES
Aea Varfis-van Warmelo is a Greek-British poet and writer based in London. She writes about deceit, the apocalypse and other good things. Her work has appeared in The White Review, The Rialto, Tolka, among other journals, and the National Poetry Library’s Future Cities exhibition. She was shortlisted for The White Review‘s Poets Prize, was an inaugural member of the Southbank Centre’s New Poets Collective and recently graduated from The Royal College of Art’s Writing MA.
Will Harris is a London-based writer. He is the author of the poetry books RENDANG (2020) and Brother Poem (2023), both published by Granta in the UK and Wesleyan in the US. He has been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. He co-edited the Spring 2020 issue of The Poetry Review with Mary Jean Chan. He helps facilitate the Southbank New Poets Collective with Vanessa Kisuule, and co-translated Habib Tengour’s Consolatio with Delaina Haslam in 2022. He was Visiting Poetry Fellow at UEA (2022-2023) as part of a project to build a community-led archive of poets’ work, and he currently works in the care sector.
Oluwaseun (Seun) Olayiwola is a poet, critic, choreographer and performer based in London. His poems have been published and anthologized in: The Guardian, The Poetry Review, PN Review, Oxford Poetry, TATE, bath magg, 14poems, Re:creation, and Queerlings. As a Ledbury Poetry Critic, he’s written reviews for the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Times Literary Supplement, the Poetry School, Magma, Poetry Birmingham, and the Poetry Book Society. His poetry has been commissioned by the Royal Society of Literature and Spread the Word. His debut poetry collection is forthcoming from Granta (UK) and Soft Skull Press (US).
Amy McCauley’s publications include Oedipa (Guillemot Press, 2018) 24/7 Brexitland (No Matter Press, 2020) Propositions (Monitor Books, 2020) ‘I am a poet and lyricist. My writing practice tests the possibilities of reworking canonical myths, forms and ideas, and enters into a dialogue with these existing narratives, structures and registers. Oedipa, for example, reworks the myth of Oedipus and reimagines the narrative through the lenses of feminism and psychoanalysis. 24/7 Brexitland takes the language around Brexit and channels it into the form of an extended Lord’s Prayer. Propositions is a sideways response to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.’
Orit Gat is a writer and art critic living in London. She is a contributing editor at The White Review and at Art Papers and has written about contemporary art, culture, digital culture, and football for magazines including frieze, e-flux journal and e-flux criticism, ArtReview, Jacobin, Texte zur Kunst, Paper Visual Art, Art Monthly, the Times Literary Supplement, the LA Review of Books, The World Policy Journal, Flash Art, The Art Newspaper, VICE, AIGA Eye on Design, The Brooklyn Rail, Apollo, Art in America, Spike Art Quarterly, Camera Austria, Review 31, and Cultured, among others. She won the Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant in the short-form writing category in 2015 and was a finalist for the Absolut Art Writing Award (2017) and the International Award for Art Criticism (2017, 2018).
With Aea Varfis-van Warmelo, Oluwaseun (Seun) Olayiwola, Amy McCauley, Orit Gat and Will Harris.
This event will mark the launch of a pamphlet of new poems by Aea Varfis-van Warmelo, and will include readings from the collection, guest poets, and an in-conversation.
Intellectual Property is a series of long-form poems that propose the law of intellectual property as poetry’s dark twin — both forms task language with the burden of shaping the intangible, and both forms consider human ingenuity to be of infinite value. Weaving through a series of landmark disputes, the poems apply the laws of intellectual property to our private lives and seek to determine what constitutes an idea, and whether we can ever own one. Language’s brutal extreme is usually reserved for the law — this pamphlet explores what happens when it infiltrates poetry. Running from the Leibniz-Newton Calculus Controversy, to the Son of Sam Law, the poems deftly position the cut of the law against the inner workings of a teenage boy, and young pregnant woman. These figures’ relationships and choices pivot between the juridical and the private.
The current exhibitions at CCA, by Esteban Jefferson and Karrabing Film Collective, will be on view from 6:30pm.
BIOGRAPHIES
Aea Varfis-van Warmelo is a Greek-British poet and writer based in London. She writes about deceit, the apocalypse and other good things. Her work has appeared in The White Review, The Rialto, Tolka, among other journals, and the National Poetry Library’s Future Cities exhibition. She was shortlisted for The White Review‘s Poets Prize, was an inaugural member of the Southbank Centre’s New Poets Collective and recently graduated from The Royal College of Art’s Writing MA.
Will Harris is a London-based writer. He is the author of the poetry books RENDANG (2020) and Brother Poem (2023), both published by Granta in the UK and Wesleyan in the US. He has been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. He co-edited the Spring 2020 issue of The Poetry Review with Mary Jean Chan. He helps facilitate the Southbank New Poets Collective with Vanessa Kisuule, and co-translated Habib Tengour’s Consolatio with Delaina Haslam in 2022. He was Visiting Poetry Fellow at UEA (2022-2023) as part of a project to build a community-led archive of poets’ work, and he currently works in the care sector.
Oluwaseun (Seun) Olayiwola is a poet, critic, choreographer and performer based in London. His poems have been published and anthologized in: The Guardian, The Poetry Review, PN Review, Oxford Poetry, TATE, bath magg, 14poems, Re:creation, and Queerlings. As a Ledbury Poetry Critic, he’s written reviews for the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Times Literary Supplement, the Poetry School, Magma, Poetry Birmingham, and the Poetry Book Society. His poetry has been commissioned by the Royal Society of Literature and Spread the Word. His debut poetry collection is forthcoming from Granta (UK) and Soft Skull Press (US).
Amy McCauley’s publications include Oedipa (Guillemot Press, 2018) 24/7 Brexitland (No Matter Press, 2020) Propositions (Monitor Books, 2020) ‘I am a poet and lyricist. My writing practice tests the possibilities of reworking canonical myths, forms and ideas, and enters into a dialogue with these existing narratives, structures and registers. Oedipa, for example, reworks the myth of Oedipus and reimagines the narrative through the lenses of feminism and psychoanalysis. 24/7 Brexitland takes the language around Brexit and channels it into the form of an extended Lord’s Prayer. Propositions is a sideways response to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus.’
Orit Gat is a writer and art critic living in London. She is a contributing editor at The White Review and at Art Papers and has written about contemporary art, culture, digital culture, and football for magazines including frieze, e-flux journal and e-flux criticism, ArtReview, Jacobin, Texte zur Kunst, Paper Visual Art, Art Monthly, the Times Literary Supplement, the LA Review of Books, The World Policy Journal, Flash Art, The Art Newspaper, VICE, AIGA Eye on Design, The Brooklyn Rail, Apollo, Art in America, Spike Art Quarterly, Camera Austria, Review 31, and Cultured, among others. She won the Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant in the short-form writing category in 2015 and was a finalist for the Absolut Art Writing Award (2017) and the International Award for Art Criticism (2017, 2018).
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