Slow mania Book Launch and Poetry Reading

Join us on Sunday, February 8 at 4pm to celebrate the launch of Nazareth Hassan’s Slow mania (Futurepoem, 2025) with readings by Hassan, Philip Kenner, Elliot Reed, Benedict Nguyễn, and Charles Theonia.

Slow mania was selected for publication by Futurepoem guest editors Gabriela Jáuregui, Ronaldo V. Wilson, and Shiv Kotecha. Using fluid prose, sardonic poetry, textural photography, and sprawling performance scores, Slow mania is a psychogeographical text that weaves a portrait of the complications of self-acceptance. The text follows multiple unnamed characters, all of whom narrate the inner life of the space and people around them as they navigate toxic cityscapes, breathless relationships, public violence, and indiscriminate release. Alienation becomes a guiding light, leading them to richer versions of themselves.

The program is presented as part of that that, which transforms CARA into an expanded bookstore environment. In the weeks preceding our spring exhibition of the Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant’s (1928–2011) personal art collection, we present a series of book launches, readings, and conversations shaped by the poetic force that animates Glissant’s chapter “That That” in his book Poetics of Relation.

Nazareth Hassan is a writer, director, and musician. Performance and theater works include Practice at Playwrights Horizons, Bowl EP at The Vineyard Theater, Untitled (1-5) at The Shed (text published by 3 Hole Press), VANTABLACK at Theatertreffen Stückemarkt in Berlin, and Memory A at MUAC in Mexico City. Their second book, Slow mania, was published in December 2025 by Futurepoem. They are a 2026-27 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University.

Philip Kenner (he/they) is an NYC-based poet and playwright from New Rochelle, NY. Philip’s debut chapbook BOYSTUFF is out now from Glass Poetry Press. His poetry has been published in Swing, 3Elements Review, Fruitslice, Kitchen Table Quarterly, Milk Press, Cordite Poetry Review, poetry.onl, Colectivo Tabú, Let My People Cum, and elsewhere. His plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and around the country. He is a founding member of COPY Magazine, and he has an MFA from Northwestern University.

Benedict Nguyễn is a dancer, writer, and creative producer. She appeared in the short film Don’t F*ck with Bà (2024, dir. Sally Tran) and has collaborated on recent projects with Sally Silvers and Sugar Vendil. She’s the author of the [redacted] freelance labor zine nasty notes (2022) and the novel Hot Girls with Balls (Catapult, 2025), a USA Today national bestseller and Indie Next Pick.

Elliot Reed is an artist based in NYC, working across video, dance, performance, and sculpture. He received his MA in choreography from Master EXERCE ICI-CCN in Montpellier, France, and was a member of The Whitney Museum ISP 2023-24 cohort. Recent exhibitions include Danspace Project, MoMA PS1, Kunsthaus Glarus, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Centro De Cultura Contemporánea Condoduque Madrid, and Performance Space New York.

charles theonia is a poet from Brooklyn, NY. They are the author of Gay Heaven Is a Dance Floor but I Can't Relax (Archway Editions), If a Piece Falls off the Poem, Keep It (Belladonna*), and other writings on zits, piss, and disco.