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School for Poetic Computation

My friend Jen Lowe recently announced the School for Poetic Computation.

Our motto is: more poems less demos.

While theirs is a specific craft, the mission statement of SfPC has wide applicability to all places of learning. For example, in the following paragraph, substitute writer with any other creative role.

We are interested in craft, and the idea that every writer needs space and time to hone their trade. Our school aims to provide a safe haven – so you could get acquainted with the craft at your own pace, make it your own, find that part between your true creative process and the craft. This takes time, encouragement, the right push at the right time, conversations with colleagues, and more time.

Read the rest of the mission — that all schools embody the sensibilities contained in those last four paragraphs.

Encapsulated Universes

“Think about it this way. We have 7,000 languages. Each of these languages encompasses a world-view, encompasses the ideas and predispositions and cognitive tools developed by thousands of years of people in that culture. Each one of those languages offers a whole encapsulated universe. So we have 7,000 parallel universes, some of them are quite similar to one another, and others are a lot more different. The fact that there’s this great diversity is a real testament to the flexibility and the ingenuity of the human mind. The fact that we’re able to take so many different perspectives and create such an incredibly diverse set of ways of looking at the world, that is something first to be celebrated, but also something to learn from: flexibility and diversity are at the very heart of what makes us human and what makes us so smart. I think the more we understand how people are able to take all these different perspectives, and able to change the way they think, the better we’ll understand the nature of being human.”

—Lera Boroditsky on “Encapsulated Universes”