‘We are lacking love’ was a one-day public event developed as part of the response to the expropriation of an independent artist space by the municipality of Guimarães (Portugal). The event explored the possibility of rethinking political formations through personal, affective perspectives by using looking into the proposition-manifesto by Lawrence Ferlinghetti of poetry as an insurgent art. ‘We are lacking love’ explored this possibility by making a call for poems about love to be read in a temporary assembly of readers. The purpose of the event was to explore how a community of listening can be formally articulated as an acts of citizenship. In preparation for the event, a call for poems on the matters of love, of losing, of being expropriated, as statement of desired future, was distributed in Guimarães and through social media. Hundreds of poems and other text-forms replied the call (and more would be brought by those attending the event), as well as video and performance by local artistis to the event. As a follow-up of ‘We are lacking love’, a publication reflecting on processes of transferring between private affect and the political, through the articulation of the concept of ‘disposition’ is being develop in co-authorship with Max Fernandes and Filipa Araújo.