Spreads from the Multiverse is the plainest way to say what the four images on the Blackwood’s lightboxes are: spread pages from texts in the Multiverse series of neurodivergent writing from Milkweed Editions. But Spreads from the Multiverse also gestures towards Adam Wolfond’s invitation to “extend the choreography.” Something spreads from the text to the reader, who these images make clear is also always a viewer. And when it spreads, there is a transference of sorts, a contagion, a becoming. The text, as Hannah Emerson writes, “helps you get / that the world was made / from the garbage at the bottom / of the universe that was boiling over / with joy that wanted to become you you / you yes yes yes.” Joyful contagion, gregarious becoming. The text, as Lauren Russell writes, “above beneath within between” is “asking / a question that blooms in me like a tulip.” Omnidirectional bouquet, walking garden of questions. By extending the choreography, becoming ourselves, and blooming anew, we are, as Imane Boukaila writes, “distancing totally ourselves / from OMG dusty norms.” How will the spreads spread from human to text to human to text to human and on and on? How will the reading be spreading from here to there, from you to you to you to yes?
This out loud reading tour will begin with a short presentation in Room L1220 in the Kaneff Centre. Room L1220 is a large room with fixed, raked seating, like an amphitheatre; the stepped seating integrates tables for note-taking. Accessible multiuser gendered washrooms are located on the ground and lower levels. The building is AODA-compliant, with wide doorways and powered doors.
Participants will then be guided to four outdoor lightboxes, stopping at each for a short reading of the featured poem. Some movement throughout the campus will be required—ramps and curb cuts are in place. The 6-foot by 9-foot lightboxes are located on the exteriors of the Kaneff Centre, Davis Building, and in the CCT Courtyard along the bustling central paved pathways of the University of Toronto Mississauga campus.

