“Imagining What We Don’t Know” describes the main drive in the writings of Lisa Samuels. This performance will feature experiments in poetry, memoir, and the novel as well as discussion of her creative theory work in biolife and the ethics of imaginative unknowing.

Lisa Samuels is a visiting scholar at the Simpson Center for the Humanites who has published thirteen books of poetry and prose, with recent experiments in memoir (Anti M, 2013) and the novel (Tender Girl, 2015). Her book-length transmigration poem Tomorrowland (2009) is being made into an art film by director Wes Tank, and her poetry has inspired musical scores by composer Frédéric Pattar and others. Samuels also creates soundwork and writes critical essays, including Over Hear: Six Types of Poetry experiment in Aotearoa/New Zealand (2015). Her book A TransPacific Poetics, edited with Sawako Nakayasu, will be published in 2016. Her current projects include The Civic Unconscious (poems) and The Long White Cloud of Unknowing (prose). A US-born transnational poet, Samuels has lived in Sweden, Israel/Palestine, Yemen, Malaysia, Spain, and, since 2006, in Aotearoa/New Zealand, where she teaches at the University of Auckland.