The National Poetry Foundation takes pleasure in announcing the next in our sequence of "decades" conferences, to be devoted to the poetry of the 1970s, American and international, and to be held from Wednesday to Sunday, June 11-15, 2008, on the flagship campus of the University of Maine System in Orono, Maine.

Keynote poets: Bruce Andrews, Rae Armantrout, Nicole Brossard, Clark Coolidge, Jayne Cortez, Ann Lauterbach, Bernadette Mayer, Tom Raworth and Fred Wah. For full event schedule, click here.

The NPF welcomes paper and panel proposals on any and all aspects of poetic practice in the tumultuous decade of the 1970s. What emerged? What suffered eclipse? What happened just out of frame? What connections brought poetry into dialog with other fields? What social and political contexts mattered most? What of the present can be traced back to that moment? What poets, poetic formations, tendencies in poetics warrant our continued attention? What accidents of reception might we now revisit and perhaps repair?

As with previous NPF conferences, the scholarly presentations and panels will be amply supplemented by a variety of poetry readings, including plenary readings by notable figures associated with the decade being explored. An exhibition of visual works is also planned.

Paper proposals consisting of a title and a brief (250-500 word) abstract should be directed to Steve Evans either by e-mail (Steven dot Evans at Maine dot Edu) or by regular mail (see address below). Panel proposals should include, in addition, a brief rationale for the envisioned grouping.

The deadline for submission of proposals was March 31, 2008.

On-line registration is available via this website. For a guide, just click here.

We hope to see you in Orono!

Posted by Steve Evans on Monday, October 15 2007 in Announcements, Calls for Papers