II Poetics of Textual and Bodily Breath

Mushrooms as Our Guide: A Listening and Reading Group in Warsaw

Warsaw | October 2024

Listening and reading groups are always shaped by the site they take place. I had been planning this group for weeks, but through discussions with local friends and the community, it organically merged with the seasonal practice of mushroom picking. We gathered in the woods, unsure where we would pause to read aloud. Guided by the mushrooms, our journey blended outdoor exploration with embodied literary practice. We read aloud Edna O’Brien’s A Pagan Place, reimagining it through the lens of the shopping list scene in Chantal Akerman’s My Mother Laughs. This pairing challenged us to rethink modes of address in literature that confront transgenerational trauma and shame, particularly as the use of “You” in A Pagan Place spoke to the fragmented subjectivities inherent in these experiences.

Later, we came together to prepare and share a mushroom soup made from our collected mushrooms; a gesture echoing the communal, durational practices I’ve explored in previous residencies. Much like the intimate gatherings at Tsarino, this Warsaw experience created a space where living, eating, and reading intertwined, revealing deeper layers of shared memory and embodied history.

This event stands as a testament to the transformative power of combining outdoor, communal experiences with critical literary dialogue, fostering reflective encounters that reimagine both personal and collective narratives.