Poet Eleni Stecopoulos and The Poetry Center at San Francisco State University collaborated on The Poetics of Healing, a series of public programs investigating the poetics of embodiment, illness, and healing. The project encompassed 20 public programs in a variety of San Francisco Bay Area venues–from the teaching hospital at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine to the Meridian Gallery and the Unitarian Center in San Francisco and The Subterranean ArtHouse in Berkeley.
The 30 guest participants were exceptional and included, among others, phenomenologist Alphonso Lingis, Chilean poet Raul Zurita, and Guatemalan-British physician Nuri Gene-Cos, a specialist in trauma and treatment for survivors of war. In conjunction with the public programs, Stecopoulos developed a blog and a book manuscript, and the Poetry Center’s American Poetry Archives documented the programs.
Eleni Stecopoulos is a poet and scholar, the author of the chapbook Autoimmunity (Taxt Press, 2006), and the forthcoming full-length book of poetry, Armies of Compassion (Palm Press, 2009). Her background in literature, creative writing, anthropology, and Hellenic studies is held together by generative thinking that centers on illness and health.
The PoetryCenter, a 50+ year institution, presents outstanding contemporary writers in performance reading their works and speaking in related public forums. It documents all programs via its extensive recorded archives.