VIDEO + AUDIO Tripwire Cross-Cultural Poetics Series: Antena: a language justice and language experimentation collaborative, Jen Hofer and John Pluecker

Full-program video: Antena: Jen Hofer and John Pluecker: September 27, 2018
Video highlight clip: Antena, John Pluecker and Jen Hofer, engage in a live translation experiment (excerpt)

The Poetry Center's Tripwire Cross-Cultural Poetics Series debuts September 2018 with a two-day series by poet-translator-activists Jen Hofer and John Pluecker, who collectively organize Antena, a language justice and language experimentation collaborative, focusing on writing, art- and book-making, translating, interpreting, and language justice. Hofer and Pluecker, visiting respectively from Los Angeles and Houston, will read from their own work on Wednesday, September 26, at E. M. Wolfman Books in downtown Oakland, then present their work around Antena the following evening, Thursday, September 27, at The Poetry Center. Both events are free and open to the public. 

Antena is a language justice and literary experimentation collaborative founded by Jen Hofer and John Pluecker, both writers, artists, literary translators, bookmakers and activist interpreters. Antena activates links between social justice work and artistic practice by exploring how critical views on language can help us to reimagine and rearticulate the worlds we inhabit. Antena has exhibited, published, performed, organized, advocated, translated, curated, interpreted, and/or instigated with numerous groups and institutions, including Blaffer Art Museum, Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics, and Project Row Houses. Antena publishes bilingual chapbooks and pamphlets through our Libros Antena Books imprint, and collaborates with BOMB Magazine and Ugly Duckling Presse on the Señal Series of Latin American literature in translation.

John Pluecker is a language worker who writes, translates, organizes, interprets, and creates. In 2010, he co-founded the collaborative Antena and in 2015 the social justice interpreting collective Antena Houston. His undisciplinary work is informed by experimental poetics, language justice, and cross-border/cross-language cultural production. He has translated numerous books from the Spanish, including most recently Gore Capitalism (Semiotext(e), 2018) and Antígona González (Les Figues Press, 2016). His book of poetry and image, Ford Over, was released in 2016 from Noemi Press.

Jen Hofer is a Los Angeles-based poet, translator, social justice interpreter, teacher, knitter, book-maker, public letter-writer, urban cyclist, and co-founder of the language justice and language experimentation collaborative Antena and the local language justice advocacy collective Antena Los Ángeles. She publishes poetry, essays and translations with numerous small independent presses, most recently Kenning Editions, NewLights Press, and Ugly Duckling Presse, and in various DIY/DIT incarnations. Jen teaches writing and translation at Otis College of Art + Design and at Occidental College, and does cross-language work supporting community groups in creating effective bilingual and multilingual spaces through language justice practices.