"For Lack of a Dictionary": Poetry Reading, Book Signing, and Discussion with Rosalind Morris

Synopsis:
In this debut collection, renowned scholar Rosalind Morris spans the lyrical landscapes of personal experience and global political dilemmas. Organized into four distinct sections, each featuring seven poems that vary in style and content, For Lack of a Dictionary reflects the diverse facets of human complexity and the struggle to find a language capable of addressing them. Beginning with a mythopoetic exploration of the self and progressing through varied voices and forms—from the epistolary and the erotic to the elegiac—the collection navigates the absences and presences that shape our interpersonal connections. From Homer’s Iliad to Hobbes’s Leviathan, and from the intimate letters of the Rosenbergs to the television broadcasts of lunar landings, Morris revisits epic figures of classical literature with a contemporary voice, concluding with poignant reflections on personal loss and the seductive allure of magical thinking in times of grief. In the tradition of Adrienne Rich and Muriel Rukeyser, Morris engages in a dialogue that challenges and enlightens, positioning For Lack of a Dictionary as a profound commentary on the intersections of personal and political realms.

Bio:
Rosalind Morris is Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University. Her most recent publications include Unstable Ground: The Lives, Deaths and Afterlives of Gold in South Africa (Columbia, 2025), the edited memoir of Rafael Sanchez (Reconocimientos: A Memoir of Becoming, Fordham, 2025) and the poetry collection entitled For Lack of a Dictionary (Fordham, 2025). She has written widely on social and cultural theory, art, media and aesthetics. In addition to her own filmmaking (We are Zama Zama, and The Zama Zama Project), both about extraction in South Africa, she has collaborated broadly with artists engaged with questions of extraction, colonialism and landscape (including William Kentridge, Clive van den Berg, and Shazia Sikander).