Amanda Monti, Writer

Amanda Monti (any pronoun) is a cross-disciplinary poet, who works in literature, translation, radio, performance and scholarly research. Through playful research methodologies and a deep commitment to queer worlding and kinship Amanda lifts poetry off the page and into poetry as a practice of living with a sense of wonder, tenderness and care.

As a TA, Amanda wants to empowering students to use the art of storytelling to observe and inquire and subsequently create, partake and change society. Through a critical and active reading practice as well as writing techniques (cut ups, erasure, found text, automatic writing) Amanda wants to enhance students ability to write, perform and play.

Deeply influenced by the teachings of Audre Lorde and Donna Haraway Amanda is committed to create the kind of spaces in which we can open up questions, sensibilities, and imaginaries around more liveable futures that aren't built on war, domination, and extermination.

TAP Work:

"I am a NY based poet and performer from Germany, with most of my teaching experience coming from university environments; I've become increasingly frustrated with academia as a place to "theorize" change, without offering many tools to actually "do" and so I came to TAP hopeful and curious to acquire tools, challenge my own beliefs and privileges and align my teaching practice with my art and politics. At TAP I created a Teaching Path around the themes of Utopia and Storytelling, and with the support of the TAP community and mentors, came up with writing exercises to try out in the classroom, such as integrating the writings of Audre Lorde in quote-mashup writing exercises. I've also participated at Social Emotional Learning conversations and wrote a blog on the relationship of poetry and SEL. Currently, I am working with an Indie Press, writing up teaching guides for experimental poetry, and hope to find more work as a TA with Young Adults in the coming months."

Most Memorable TAP Moment:

"In one exercise we were asked to share our creative "Flowers, Weeds and Seeds" with our care teams - a beautiful frame in itself to talk about achievements, challenges and all in between - but what struck me was the degree of everyone's vulnerability and honesty in answering these questions. It reminded me that courage and vulnerability truly are one and the same thing. I feel grateful to have shared space and learned from fellow creatives and radically courageous teachers in these many ways and it planted many new seeds in the soil of my work."

Check out the blog Amanda wrote, "A Classroom that Moves like a Poem: Teaching Poetry through a Social-Emotional-Learning Framework".

See some of Amanda's work here:

"For Cisco"

time is a ball

& elastic while the long dead, & the starved, & the pets & the petted

eat from the rocks & the scratches in pans

i burn rice things are so much more alive

things are so much more dead

than fits into the human heart

when i grow up i want to be

condensation i will kiss everyone

fully all at once forever

like the desert is most desert,

where it is not

i like to think that this is how love works, too

like the girl i love

trains my gaze to see what i do not

when she cooks i taste her fully all at once forever

i like to think that this is how time works, too

a touch letting that go

& keeping this

when i grow young

i want to be air

between ears rice boiled

in droplets of sweat

my love

in all her salt

"Making Milky"

i used to live

in buckets of water.

21 seconds. next to an eight lane motor way

an old house. with one window. a new house.

eternal. like a can

surviving its own beans.

two windows. no windows. i used to tumble

in purple sun. orange.

still. big like silk

made of milky way

i wrapped myself around your solar plexus region

where i used to read the news

every morning and you’d say

i don’t want to know this

and then: i don’t know anything unless

i do

like a friend

obsessed with painting light bulbs

i used to gather old coats worn by pores of skin

into a collage of light

stars now your parent

under an oxygen sky

breathe the ones the bones. covered & uncovered

humbled by each

vibration