Poetry, Resistance and Silence

When is silence a viable strategy for resistance, and when does it instead play into the hands of the prevailing powers? Where can the quiet rooms of a city, or a society, be found?

In poetry - perhaps more than in any other art form - a silence is ever present, between the words, and inside of them, side by side wih the scream, the noise.

With a combination of readings and discussion a number of poets examine the idea of silence, in an attempt to create a collective, poetic landscape around the theme.

Does poetry demand silence, or does it in fact create its own, different silence? What happens in the white silence part of a poem where the lines are

broken?

Does the silence of the city differ from that inside a stone?

Johannes Anyuru