This talk will consider writing that does not resolve, socially or privately, into an artifact. What is writing that does not resolve, obey, stop/go, descend or arrive? Bhanu Kapil will consider the book as something that, under these conditions, is not something the writer can move towards or even write. The writing at this moment is something she will theorize as undeveloped writing, analyzing an unwritten book as something marked by ecstasy, exhaustion, receptivity, but also disgust.

Bhanu Kapil's newest publication, How To Wash A Heart, reverse-engineers or elaborates a performance or ritual she gave at ICA London in June 2019. The story of an immigrant guest and a citizen host – it will be published by Pavilion Poetry (Liverpool University Press, UK) in Spring 2020. Bhanu Kapil has lived in the U.S. for 29, or 21, years, but now lives in the U.K., where she is working through mud, violet light and poetry in the Judith E. Wilson drama studio at the University of Cambridge.