New York–based composer and writer Ethan Philbrick presents a workshop exploring how to put into practice the paradoxical title of Frank O’Hara’s Meditations in an Emergency (1957), itself a riff on John Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1642). Working with some of the formal features of meditation—trance-like repetition of short phrases, guided visualizations, and ambient sonic atmospheres—we will transform existing texts into experimental meditations for times of social crisis.

This special off-site event is copresented by E. M. Wolfman Bookstore. Ethan Philbrick gives a related performance at BAMPFA on March 7.