Northwestern’s Workshop in Trans Studies organized a poetry night Thursday evening with readings by two transgender writers in University Hall.
The Workshop in Trans Studies is a graduate working group sponsored by NU’s Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities and founded two years ago by sixth-year English Ph.D. candidate Smith Yarberry. The group typically organizes one event each quarter, including trips to Chicago and speaker events.
The two-hour-long panel began with readings by writers Samuel Ace and New York University Prof. Michael M. Weinstein (Weinberg ’10), followed by a moderated discussion and an audience Q&A section.
“To get people in the room that have different ideas, can ask these questions and bring things that we might not think of ourselves to the conversation is what we’re trying to make happen,” Yarberry said.
Weinstein read excerpts from his poem collection “Saint Consequence,” published in August.
During the discussion, Weinstein emphasized how, as a student, he didn’t have role models for the kind of life he wanted to live and said his goal with speaker events is to combat that.
“I hope that people attending this event might find something that speaks to them and might have a glimpse of a livable future life, a way that they want to engage with the arts that would be meaningful for them,” Weinstein said. “I would have liked to have that as a student, so if anything I do promotes that, great.”
Ace read excerpts from three of his works: “I want to start by saying,” “Our Weather Our Sea” and “Meet Me There: Normal Sex & Home in three days. Don’t wash.”
Ace has put both his birth name and current name on the covers of some of his published works, such as “Meet Me There,” a decision he says is motivated by the belief that it’s all a part of who he is.
“We all go through changes,” Ace said. “When people get married, they change their name. My great grandparents and grandparents who were immigrants to this country, their names were changed for them. It’s all a part of my life, and I don’t want to hide it.”
Communication senior Kieran Mulligan, who attended the event, said she has gone to several other WiTS events.
Mulligan said she hopes more students will consider coming to future panels.
“It was really cool to see trans poets and to be able to imagine that as a future for myself is sort of awesome,” Mulligan said. “Events like these are important, and without people to go to them they will not continue existing.”
Weinstein, who majored in creative writing while at NU, credited his education with teaching him that poetry is “a craft and a science,” not just a creative pursuit.
He also highlighted the necessity of programs such as WiTS in today’s world.
“Northwestern is incredibly lucky to have a program in transgender studies and to have opportunities like this one to make trans life, trans art and trans philosophy a focus of discussion at a time when the public discourse is often not nuanced and not complex,” Weinstein said. “This feels like an important space to have that conversation.”
Clarification: This story has been updated to include Michael M. Weinstein’s middle initial.
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