Live in Conversation: Vievee Francis and Sebastian Matthews

Memoirist Sebastian Matthews and poet Vievee Francis will join in conversation in honor of the publication of Matthews’ Beyond Repair: Living in a Fractured State. Longtime friends, Vievee and Sebastian will discuss the book and its main themes, including white privilege, cultural trauma, hybrid form, and the importance of bearing witness. Both will read from their work, and Sebastian will ask Vievee questions about her new work. Vievee is the author of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for her book Forest Primeval and the Hurston Wright Legacy Award for her Poetry. Sebastian is the author of several books of poetry as well as the recently released collection of personal essays Beyond Repair which examines how the author’s experience of trauma and recovery after being hit in a head-on car crash by a man in the throes of a heart attack. As Matthews emerges again into the world, he finds himself in a country that is polarized and seemingly experiencing the same shocks of PTSD as he is in the years just leading up to the election of Donald Trump. In the conversation, Vievee and Francis will delve into these themes, discussing trauma, recovery, and the parallels between picking up the pieces of a single live and picking up the pieces of a shattered country.

 


Their conversation will be streamed live on YouTube at 4:00 p.m. PST here. The event will also be streamed live at redhen.org/virtual, and on Facebook.