BICA School Lab | 30 Essex Street
Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required

Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.

Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert— bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

→ Carson, Anne. Autobiography of Red. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.

A novel in verse about a red-winged monster who wants to be an artist.

Anne Carson retells the myth of Geryon — a winged red creature slain by Herakles — as a coming-of-age story set in the contemporary world. Geryon grows up, falls in love, takes photographs, and tries to figure out what he is. Carson moves between lyric poetry, essay, and narrative without announcing the transitions. The result is a book that feels like several things at once: a love story, a mythology, an autobiography, a meditation on color and memory and what it means to make something. Come having read as much or as little as you can.