This evening follows up on the first Belonging in the Mess (A World we Lose by Waking up in Sanity), which focused on uttering, vocalizing, articulating and being present with one's relating to the notion of mental illness*, in its wide variety of shapes and forms. Working from the will to break through the taboos surrounding this notion, we moved between attempts not to cling to the term illness, without, however, dismissing it.

In this second evening of voicing perspectives, the focus lies with positioning one's experience in relation to structures at large - that is: as a response to or reflection of a system that is ill or malfunctioning. In this sense, anxiety, depression, apathy, paranoia (to name a few) are read as repercussions of a dysfunctional, unequal, violent everyday. In reading this way, we are thinking with Mark Fisher, as well as Anna Tsing, Lyn Hejinian, Sara Ahmed, Johanna Hedva and many others who have addressed these issues. Tonight, Jane Lewty, Çağlar Köseoğlu and Koleka Putuma (via video) will shed light on these issues.

Moreover, we do not perceive or approach illness* as metaphorical of a system, with awareness and respect towards those diagnosed with a chronic or non-chronic illness*. It is, hence, not about polarizing or defining a hierarchy, but rather about drawing lines, broadening outwards and inwards, recognizing the political dimension of mental illness* and bringing the inner struggles in dialogue with the outer ones.

*the term illness/mental illness is used here with care, and by lack of a more sensitive term, for i.e. ‘mental deviations’ or ‘brain disorder’ seem equally normative to the editors of this evening.

Jane Lewty is the author of two collections of poetry: Bravura Cool (1913 Press: 2013), winner of the 1913 First Book Prize in 2011, and In One Form To Find Another (Cleveland State University Press: 2017) winner of the 2016 CSU Open Book Prize. She has coedited two volumes of essays: Broadcasting Modernism (University Press of Florida, 2010) and Pornotopias: Image, Desire, Apocalypse (Litteraria Pragensia, 2009). Lewty's latest work has focused on how systemic inequities advance certain stereotypes about sickness and the female-identifying body, and how somatic symptom disorder is exacerbated by living and working amongst structures that do not nurture or support.

Çağlar Köseoğlu debuted in 2015 with 34, a poetry collection with a critical point of view towards the history and the present of Turkey. His poems were published in Samplekanon, nY, Kluger Hans, Deus Ex Machina and Kunsttijdschrift Vlaanderen. He is editor at nY and Contrivers' Review and teaches at Erasmus University College in Rotterdam.

Koleka Putuma has taken the South African literary scene by storm with her bestselling debut collection of poems Collective Amnesia. Since its publication in April 2017, the book is in its 7th print run and has been prescribed for study at tertiary level in South African Universities. Collective Amnesia was named 2017 Book of the Year by the City Press and one of the best books of 2017 by The Sunday Times and Quartz Africa, and has recently been granted the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry 2018. She is a 2018 Forbes Africa Under 30 Honoree. Koleka Putuma was recently recognised as a Rising Star at the 2017 South African Mbokodo Awards. She is the recipient of the 2016 PEN South Africa Student Writing Prize. Recipient of the 2017 CASA playwrighting award. She has been named one of the young pioneers who took South Africa by storm in 2015 by The Sunday Times, one of 12 future shapers by Marie Claire SA, the groundbreaking new voice of South African poetry by OkayAfrica, one of 100 young people disrupting the status-quo in South Africa.