NPF News & Events

Ronald Johnson: Life & Works

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:41:00 EST

The NPF is pleased to announce the publication of Ronald Johnson: Life and Works, edited by Joel Bettridge and Eric Murphy Selinger. This title extends the Man/Woman & Poet series inaugurated by Carroll F. Terrell in 1979 with Louis Zukofsky: Man & Poet.

70s Conference Reports

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:23:00 EST

The National Poetry Foundation's conference on The Poetry of the 1970s brought upwards of two hundred writers and scholars to the University of Maine for five days of conversations and performances between June 11-15, 2008. Below you will find a number of links to on-line reports emerging from the Conference. (We'll be updating as new materials become available.)

Conference Related Sites

A sampling of abstracts and presentation texts is available via ThoughtMesh, created in collaboration with USC's Vectors Journal. Read more about ThoughtMesh on the Vectors project page. Or go directly to the NPF mesh

NPF ThoughtMesh

On Facebook? Join the more than 250 members of the new NPF group

NPF on Facebook

We've also created an NPF "channel" on YouTube, to which we'll be adding video clips from the Conference (shot by Jim Sharkey of Folk Films) and highlights from past New Writing Series events.

NPF on YouTube

Media Coverage

Read and hear local news media reports on the Conference

Emily Burnham's preview of the conference for the Bangor Daily News

Burnham's follow-up on banquet announcement of Hatlen Seminar Room

Anne Ravana's Maine Public Broadcasting Network report on Conference (featuring Cortez & Coolidge)

Jessica Bloch's article on "Art of the 1970s" exhibition

Participant Accounts, Photosets, Responses

Jasper Bernes

conference report

Raymond Bianchi

non-participant account

Anne Boyer

conference report

flickr set

Al Filreis

recalling previous NPF conferences

Benjamin Friedlander

flickr set

Kaplan Page Harris

flickr set

Rodney Koeneke

an alphabet for Orono (part one)

an alphabet for Orono (part two)

books acquired in Orono

conference report (part one)

conference report (part two)

conference "confidential" (part one)

conference "confidential" (part two)

conference "confidential" (fin)

Brooks Lampe

Doug Lang

extended conference report (part one)

Philip Metres

on Bernadette Mayer and conference in general

on Bruce Andrews

on Clark Coolidge

general observations on conference & community

Aldon Nielsen

conference report w/photos

audio clip of Clark Coolidge

audio clip of Nicole Brossard with Fred Wah

audio clip of Tom Raworth

audio clip of Rae Armantrout

Mark Nowak

on Linton Kwesi Johnson & 70s poetries

Peter O'Leary

blogging Wednesday

blogging Thursday

blogging Friday

blogging Saturday & Sunday

Tom Orange

flickr set

YouTube clip of Kit Robinson reading from Ted Greenwald's "You Bet!"

Patrick Pritchett

flickr set

Tom Raworth

flickr set

Ron Silliman

on recent conferences in Tucson, Oakland, and Orono

Lytton Smith

blogging first two days of conference

report on Grand Piano reading

Sandra Simonds

conference report

Diane Tuma

flickr set

BDN Covers Conference

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 17:54:00 EST

An online version of Emily Burnham's Bangor Daily News article on the NPF's upcoming conference on The Poetry of the 1970s is now available here.

An earlier story by Jessica Bloch on the "Art of the 1970s" companion exhibition is archived here.

One correction to Burnham's story: All conference events, including the daytime papers and panels, are open to the public.

Conference ThoughtMesh

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 11:52:00 EST

In collaboration with our colleagues at UMaine's Still Water Lab, the NPF has developed a ThoughtMesh space specifically devoted to archiving, tagging, and interlinking the papers and presentations at the upcoming conference on The Poetry of the 1970s.

ThoughtMesh is an innovative interface aimed at bring Web 2.0 features to scholarly publishing. We're glad to be serving as "early adopters" for the program and hope that conference participants will help out by contributing to the site.

A nice thing about using ThoughtMesh is that it compensates for the constraints of the real-time conference, where attending one panel means missing another. Its "lexia"-based tagging system also helps identify connections between presentations that might otherwise be overlooked

To get started, we're asking that conference participants upload their presentation titles and abstracts. Those comfortable with posting full presentation texts prior to the conference are welcome to do so. We'll be encouraging everyone to post their texts after making their presentations—either at the Conference or in the days immediately following.

Once posted to ThoughtMesh, content will be "integrated" into the NPF-specific "submesh." (That entails a separate step, done by a site administrator on our side, so please note that posts will not immediately display in the proper format.) Here's a look at the mesh so far.

And here are a few links to ThoughtMesh resources to help you get started:

ThoughtMesh welcome & sign-up page

ThoughtMesh co-creater Jon Ippolito narrates a brief tutorial here

You can read more about ThoughtMesh here

Read a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article on several Stillwater projects here

Travel Note

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:27:24 EST

For those driving to (and from) the Conference from the south: the Maine Department of Transportation plans to close a southbound section of 295 the weekend of the Conference. The trip up should be fine using either 95N or 295N, but for the trip home 95S is strongly recommended.

Frequently updated information can be found at Maine DOT here.

Conference Keynote Poet Rae Armantrout (Links)

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:21:00 EST

Next up is Rae Armantrout who reads in the Minsky Recital Hall (in The Class of 1944 building) on Saturday, June 14, 2008 at 9:00pm. Attendance is free and open to the public (though seating is limited).

You can learn more about Armantrout at these sites:

EPC author page

Chapbook 7 Poems at the Beard of Bees Chicago Free Press Website

Links to selected poems at Electronic Poetry Review

Prose piece "Cosmology and Me" in Jacket

Interview at Chicago Postmodern Poetry

Here Comes Everybody Interview

Review of Next Life in Jacket

Photo credit: Charles Bernstein

Conference Keynote Poet Tom Raworth (Links)

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:13:00 EST

Next up is Tom Raworth who reads in the Minsky Recital Hall (in The Class of 1944 building) on Saturday, June 14, 2008 at 8:00pm. Attendance is free and open to the public (though seating is limited).

You can learn more about Raworth at these sites:

Author home page

EPC author page

Author's profile and sound files at The Poetry Archive

Sound files from the Studio 111 Reading at Kelly Writers House (March 13, 2006) on PennSound

Tom Raworth in conversation with Charles Bernstein on PennSound

Nate Dorward's article "On Raworth's Sonnets" in The Gig

Photo of Tom Raworth on EPC

Conference Keynote Poet Bernadette Mayer (Links)

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:04:33 EST

Next up is Bernadette Mayer who reads in the Paul J. Schupf Wing for the Works of Alex Katz at the Colby Museum of Art on Saturday, June 14, 2008 at 10:30am. Attendance is free and open to the public (though seating is limited).

You can learn more about Mayer at these sites:

EPC author page

Mayer on PennSound

Nada Gordon on Mayer

Excerpt from Studying Hunger Journals at Lingo: A Journal of the Arts

Brief entry at The Literary Encyclopeadia

Mayer's "List of Journal Ideas" at PEPC Library

Bottom still from "Memory." Courtesy of Bernadette Mayer Papers, Archive for New Poetry, Mandeville Special Collections Library, University of California, San Diego.

Conference Keynote Poet Clark Coolidge (Links)

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:03:58 EST

Next up is Clark Coolidge who reads in the Paul J. Schupf Wing for the Works of Alex Katz at the Colby Museum of Art on Saturday, June 14, 2008 at 11:15am. Attendance is free and open to the public (though seating is limited).

You can learn more about Coolidge at these sites:

EPC author page

From Notebooks (1976-1882)

Three poems in Shampoo

"Clark Coolidge's Visual Arts Intertexts 1968-1976": Transcription of a talk by Tom Orange

Clark Coolidge feature in Jacket

Article on Ron Silliman's Blog

Clark Coolidge in conversation with Tom Orange in Jacket

Tom Raworth took the photo below at a June 2007 reading by Coolidge (with Bill Berkson and William Corbett) in London. (That's conference participant Keston Sutherland looking on.)

Conference Keynote Poet Nicole Brossard (Links)

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:25:43 EST

Next up is Nicole Brossard who reads in the Minsky Recital Hall (in The Class of 1944 building) on Friday, June 13, 2008 at 9:00pm. Attendance is free and open to the public (though seating is limited).

You can learn more about Brossard at these sites:

EPC author page

Sound files on PennSound

Brief entry in the glbtq encyclopedia

Brief article in Montreal Mirror

"On Translation & Other Such Pertinent Subjects": Interview with Brossard by Marcella Durand

Review of Notebook of Roses and Civilization

Conference Keynote Poet Ann Lauterbach (Links)

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:10:00 EST

NPF editorial assistant (and scholar in her own right) Malgorzata Myk has combed the internet for great links about the nine poets who will give keynote readings at the NPF Conference on The Poetry of the 1970s. We'll be sharing her finds in the days leading up to the Conference, so check back regularly.

Next up is Ann Lauterbach, who reads in the Minsky Recital Hall (in The Class of 1944 building) on Friday, June 13, 2008 at 8:00pm. Attendance is free and open to the public (though seating is limited).

You can learn more about Lauterbach at these sites:

EPC author page

Sound files at PennSound

Tim Peterson's interview with Lauterbach

Lauterbach's article "Slaves of Fashion" in Boston Review

"Tangled Relinquary" in Conjunctions

Sound File of Lauterbach's conversation with Charles Bernstein at Close Listening

Ohio State University Department of Art blog

Bio

Ann Lauterbach was born and grew up in Manhattan, where she studied painting at the High School of Music and Art. She received her BA from the University of Wisconsin (Madison) in English Literature, and went on to graduate work at Columbia University on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. Deciding to forego further academic degrees, she moved to London, where she lived for seven years, working variously as an editor (Thames and Hudson), a teacher (St. Martin’s School of Art), and as curator of the Literature Program at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Her early poems were published in England.

Returning to New York in 1974, Lauterbach worked in art galleries, including Max Protetch, Rosa Esman, and Joan Washburn. In the mid-1980s, she began to teach in the Writing programs at Brooklyn, Columbia, Princeton, Iowa, and at The City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and, starting in the 1990s, at Bard College. She has had residences at Yaddo, The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, and at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Orlando, Florida. Lauterbach has published seven collections of poetry: Many Times, But Then (1979), Before Recollection (1987), Clamor (1991), And For Example (1994), On A Stair (1997), If in Time :Selected Poems 1975-2000 (2001) and Hum (2005), several chapbooks and collaborations with visual artists, including How Things Bear Their Telling with Lucio Pozzi and A Clown, Some Colors, A Doll, Her Stories, A Song, A Moonlit Cove with Ellen Phelan for the Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum, New York. She has written on art and poetics in relation to cultural value, notably in a series of seven columns for the American Poetry Review entitled “The Night Sky”; essays on sculptor David Smith’s writings and drawings, a collaborative work for sculptor Ann Hamilton’s “Whitecloth” catalogue for the Aldrich Museum, and the introductory essay to Joe Brainard’s “Nancy” drawings for The Nancy Book, published by Siglio Press (2008). Lauterbach is currently at work on a new collaboration for Ann Hamilton’s “Tower” at Steve Oliver’s ranch in Geyserville, California. This work-in-progress was the subject of a talk for the Beineke Library’s exhibition and conference “Metaphor Taking Shape: Poetry, Art, and the Book” at Yale in March 2008. A new book of poems, Or To Begin Again, will be published in April 2009 by Penguin.

A collection of Lauterbach’s prose writings, The Night Sky: Writings on the Poetics of Experience, published in 2005 by Viking, was re-issued as a Penguin paperback in spring 2008.

Lauterbach has been, since 1991, Co-Chair of Writing in the Milton Avery Gradute School of the Arts and, since 1997, Ruth and David Schwab II Professor of Language and Literature at Bard College. She is the recipient of Guggenheim, New York State Foundation for the Arts, Ingram Merrill and John D. and Catherine C. MacArthur fellowships. She is a Visiting Core Critic (Sculpture and Painting) at the Yale School of Art.

Conference Keynote Poet Jayne Cortez (Links)

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:48:00 EST

NPF editorial assistant (and scholar in her own right) Malgorzata Myk has combed the internet for great links about the nine poets who will give keynote readings at the NPF Conference on The Poetry of the 1970s. We'll be sharing her finds in the days leading up to the Conference, so check back regularly.

Next up is Jayne Cortez, who reads in the Minsky Recital Hall (in The Class of 1944 building) on Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 8:30pm. Attendance is free and open to the public (though seating is limited).

You can learn more about Cortez at these sites:

African American Literature Book Club Profile

Modern American Poetry

A MELUS profile and interview

Ron Sakolsky's LiP Magazine article "Firespitter: Jayne Cortez and the Politics of Diasporic Resistance"

"I am New York City" at Mr. Africa Poetry Lounge!

"So Long" at Geocities Poetry Page

Bio

Jayne Cortez was born in Arizona, grew up in California, and currently lives in New York City. She is the author of eleven books of poetry and performer of her poems with music on nine recordings. Her voice is celebrated for its political, surrealistic, dynamic innovations in lyricism, and visceral sound. Cortez has presented her work and ideas at universities, museums, and festivals in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, the Caribbean and the United States. Her poems have been translated into many languages and widely published in anthologies, journals, and magazines. She is the recipient of several awards including: Arts International, the National Endowment for the Arts, the International African Festival Award, The Langston Hughes Medal, The American Book Award and the Thelma McAndless Distinguished Professorship Award from Eastern Michigan University. Her most recent books are “The Beautiful Book” Bola Press 2007, “Jazz Fan Looks Back” published by Hanging Loose Press, and “Somewhere In Advance of Nowhere” published by Serpent’s Tail Ltd. Her latest CD recordings with the Firespitter Band are “Find Your Own Voice” released in 2006 by Bola Press “Taking the Blues Back Home,” produced by Harmolodic and by Verve Records “Borders of Disorderly Time” Bola Press 2003. Cortez is organizer of the international conference “Slave Routes The Long Memory” and director of the films “Yari Yari: Black Women Writers and the Future,” and “Yari Yari Pamberi: Black Women Writers Dissecting Globalization.” She is president of the Organization of Women Writers of Africa, Inc. and is on screen in the films: “Women In Jazz” and “Poetry In Motion.”

Conference Keynote Poet Bruce Andrews (Links)

Thu, 29 May 2008 21:48:08 EST

Next up is Bruce Andrews, who reads in the Minsky Recital Hall (in The Class of 1944 building) on Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 7:30pm. Attendance is free and open to the public (though seating is limited).

You can learn more about Andrews at these sites:

EPC author page here

Sound files and other resources at UbuWeb here

Craig Dworkin on Bruce Andrews (Encyclopedia Entry) here

Sound files on PennSound here

Roberto Tejada's article "Becoming Bruce Andrews" in Jacket here

Charles Bernstein's Interview with Bruce Andrews here

Andrews's appearance on The O'Reilly Factor, via YouTube, here

Andrews is shown (at far left) below, in a photo by Erica Kaufman, at a panel presentation in May 2007. Read Tim Peterson's account of the panel here.

Conference Keynote Poet Fred Wah (Links)

Wed, 28 May 2008 23:29:00 EST

First up is the poet whose reading kicks off the Conference—Fred Wah.

Wah reads in the Minsky Recital Hall (in The Class of 1944 building) on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 at 8:00pm. Attendance is free and open to the public (though seating is limited).

You can learn more about Wah's work at the following sites:

University of Toronto Canadian Poets Profile here.

University of Calgary's 100 Canadian Poets Profile here.

At the Ryerson University Asian Heritage in Canada Authors Website here.

An Interview with Fred Wah on Diamond Grill here.

A brief article and dowloadable selections from his poetry reading at the University of Windsor here.

A digitized version of his recordings of the 1963 Vancouver Poetry Conference, as well as select readings and lectures (1961-67) from Wah's collection at the Slought Foundation Website here.

Wah last read in Orono as part of the UMaine New Writing Series, cosponsored by the NPF and the UMaine English Department, in March of 2006. Below is a photo taken during a class visit he made while on campus.

Seventies Conference Schedule

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:00:00 EST

National Poetry Foundation Conference on

THE POETRY OF THE 1970s

June 11-15, 2008

For a pdf of the Conference Program, including panel and paper information, click here; for a campus map listing key Conference locations, click here.

Keynote poets: Bruce Andrews, Rae Armantrout, Nicole Brossard, Clark Coolidge, Jayne Cortez, Ann Lauterbach, Bernadette Mayer, Tom Raworth, and Fred Wah

Wednesday - 11 June 2008

12:00pm Registration begins

06:30pm Reception and Art Opening at UMaine's Lord Hall Gallery

08:00pm Plenary poetry reading by Fred Wah

09:00pm Special group reading by "Queering the 70s" panelists Dodie Bellamy, Kevin Killian, and Eileen Myles

10:00pm Open poetry readings

Thursday - 12 June 2008

09:00am Panels

10:30am Plenary panel: Black Arts

01:00pm Plenary panel: No More Masks!

02:30pm Panels

04:00pm Panels

07:30pm Plenary poetry reading by Bruce Andrews

08:30pm Plenary poetry reading by Jayne Cortez

10:00pm Special group reading by Grand Piano contributors, including Steve Benson, Kit Robinson, and Barrett Watten

11:00pm Open readings

Friday - 13 June 2008

09:00am Panels

10:30am Plenary panel: Periodizing the 1970s

01:00pm Plenary panel: DC Poetry

02:30pm Panels

04:00pm Panels

05:30pm Pre-banquet reception

06:00pm Banquet

08:00pm Plenary poetry reading by Ann Lauterbach

09:00pm Plenary poetry reading by Nicole Brossard

10:30pm Special group reading by Washington, DC poets, including Tina Darragh, Lynne Dreyer, P. Inman, Joan Retallack, Phyllis Rosenzweig, Diane Ward, introduced by Tom Orange

11:30pm Open readings

Saturday - 14 June 2008

10:00am Arrive Colby College Museum of Art for specially curated exhibition of works by Alex Katz and sneak preview of exhibition by Joe Brainard

10:30am Plenary poetry reading by Bernadette Mayer

11:15am Plenary poetry reading by Clark Coolidge

12:00pm Gallery talk by Ann Lauterbach

01:00pm Return trip to UMaine campus

02:30pm Panels

04:00pm Panels

05:30pm Plenary panel: Queering the 70s

08:00pm Plenary poetry reading by Tom Raworth

09:00pm Plenary poetry reading by Rae Armantrout

10:00pm Open readings and party

Sunday -15 June 2008

09:00am Panels

10:30am Panels

12:00pm Closing remarks and reception

Confirmed conference participants (to date): Barry Alpert, Bruce Andrews, Stan Apps, Rae Armantrout, Peter Baker, Patrick Barron, Dawn Baude, Dodie Bellamy, Chad Bennett, Steve Benson, Jasper Bernes, Joel Bettridge, Tony Brinkley, Nicole Brossard, Fahamisha Brown, Lee Ann Brown, Franklin Bruno, Marie Buck, Stephen Burt, James Byrne, Charmaine Cadeau, cris cheek, Joshua Clover, Michael Clune, Alicia Cohen, Barbara Cole, Clark Coolidge, Jayne Cortez, Renee Curry, Tina Darragh, Kathe Davis, Thom Donovan, Lynne Dreyer, Patrick Durgin, Stephen Ellis, Andrew Epstein, Annie Finch, Thomas Fisher, Robert Fitterman, Brad Flis, Ed Foster, Wendy Galgan, Susan Gilmore, Chris Glomski, Michael Golston, Timothy Gray, Jeremy Green, Piotr Gwiazda, Ross Hair, Rob Halpern, Jeffrey Hamilton, Kaplan Harris, Henry Hart, Gregory Hazleton, Jeanne Heuving, Laura Hinton, Eric Hoffman, Susannah Hollister, Bruce Holsapple, Bill Howe, Florence Howe, Lisa Howe, P Inman, Grant Jenkins, Judith Johnson, Elisabeth Joyce, Kevin Killian, Youngmin Kim, Burt Kimmelman, Linda Kinnahan, Rodney Koeneke, Liz Kotz, Timothy Kreiner, Aaron Kunin, Gerry LaFemina, Kimberly Lamm, Brooks Lampe, Doug Lang, James Langer, David Lau, Ann Lauterbach, Ross Leckie, Ben Leubner, V. Nicholas LoLordo, Kimberly Lyons, Marit MacArthur, Douglas Manson, Bernadette Mayer, James Maynard, Deborah Meadows, Mark Melnicove, Mark Mendoza, Philip Metres, Peter Middleton, Brett Millier, Joe Moffet, K. Silem Mohammad, Stephen Motika, Jennifer Moxley, Malgorzata Myk, Eileen Myles, Christopher Nealon, Jeffrey Joe Nelson, Miriam Nichols, Aldon Nielsen, Peter O'Leary, Tom Orange, Richard Owens, Kurt Ozment, Alexander Papanicolopoulos, Justin Parks, Sandeep Parmar, Scott Penney, Bob Perelman, Michael Peters, Scott Pound, Matthew Powers, Patrick Pritchett, Peter Puchek, Tom Raworth, Joan Retallack, Andrew Rippeon, Michael Roberson, Kit Robinson, Phyllis Rosenzweig, Douglas Rothschild, Jennifer Russo, Linda Russo, Michael Scharf, Andrew Schelling, Judith Schwartz, Lytle Shaw, Kenneth Sherwood, Mark Silverberg, Sandra Simonds, Jonathan Skinner, James Smethurst, Ellen Smith, Heidi Smith, Paul Stephens, Mindy Stricke, Keston Sutherland, Christine Timm, Robin Tremblay-McGaw, Sam Truitt, Keith Tuma, Demetres P. Tryphonopoulos, Jeff Twitchell-Waas, Von Underwood, Anna Vitale, Fred Wah, Xu (Simon) Wang, Diane Ward, Barrett Watten, Rebecca Weaver, Jillian Weise, Donald Wellman, Aaron Winslow, Steven Zultanski.

Art of the 70s

Fri, 09 May 2008 10:00:00 EST

The NPF is grateful to Laurie Hicks, interim director of the UMaine Museum of Art, and to artist and designer MaJo Keleshian (whose idea it originally was), for making possible a special exhibition of "Art of the 70s" timed to coincide with our upcoming conference on The Poetry of the 1970s.

In curating the show for the Lord Hall Galleries on campus, Hicks drew on the ample permanent collection of the UMMA.

The exhibition will be supplemented during the Conference itself by a digital reconstruction of keynote poet Bernadette Mayer's 1971 image-sound installation "Memory" (listen to Mayer's description of the project here). Special thanks are due to Lynda Claassen and her staff at the Archive for New Poetry for their hard and careful work in the digitization process and to Stephen Cope for timely tips on identifying and locating key materials related to Mayer's "Memory" project.

Helen Adam Reader Reviewed in The Nation

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:01:00 EST

Poet Ange Mlinko favorably reviews the Helen Adam Reader for the Nation this week. You can read the review in its entirety online here.

The title, not yet picked up by Amazon, can be ordered directly from the NPF (via the link above) or through our distributor SPD.

70s Conference Keynote News

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 15:00:00 EST

The NPF is delighted to announce that the following poets have accepted invitations to give keynote performances at this summer's conference on The Poetry of the 1970s:

Bruce Andrews
Rae Armantrout
Nicole Brossard
Clark Coolidge
Jayne Cortez
Bernadette Mayer

And we expect to have even more good news on this front in coming weeks, so keep an eye on this space!

Spring '08 NWS Schedule

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 11:00:00 EST

The UMaine New Writing Series returns for its eighteenth consecutive semester this spring with an eight event line up featuring more than a dozen writers.

To learn more about the series, which is cosponsored by the National Poetry Foundation and the UMaine English Department, with additional support from the UMaine Cultural Affairs Committee, visit the NWS blog here.

Burton Hatlen Remembered

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

Alicia Anstead's obituary for Burton Hatlen, the NPF's director since 1991, ran on the front page of the Bangor Daily News on January 23rd, 2008.

Norman Finkelstein's remembrance of Hatlen can be read here

Mark Scroggin's remembrance is here.

And Ron Silliman's is here.

Helen Adam Reader Noted

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:00:00 EST

Don Share, the senior editor of Poetry magazine, selected A Helen Adam Reader as a pick of the year for 2007 in a recent online roundup (click here, then scroll down a bit).

As eerily powerful as Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” as polemically anachronistic as Spenser’s “Faerie Queen,” yet as contemporary-sounding as Charles Bernstein, Adam’s fiendish ballads are an off-kilter connection to an ancient poetics that still turns out to have lots of life left in it.

Sylvester Pollet Remembered

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 12:00:00 EST

Donna Gold remembers Sylvester Pollet in the pages of his hometown newspaper, the Ellsworth American. The Bangor Daily News also paid tribute to Pollet's life in its 26 December 2007 issue. Pollet, a poet and long-time Associate Editor at the National Poetry Foundation, died on 20 December while undergoing treatment for cancer. He is sorely missed by all of us. A memorial reading is planned for sometime late in January or early in February. More information will be available on this site as the details get settled.

Kyger's About Now reviewed in LA Times

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:01:00 EST

Lewis MacAdams reviews Joanne Kyger's About Now: Collected Poems along with The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen for the Los Angeles Times Calendar section, available online here.

Joanne Kyger to Cal State San Marcos

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:00:00 EST

Joanne Kyger continues to tour in support of her new NPF collection About Now: Collected Poems. Her next stop is San Marcos, California, where she'll be a featured reader in the Community and World Literature Series curated by the writer Mark Wallace at Cal State San Marcos. For all the details, follow this link.

Poet & Scholar Michael Davidson in Two NPF Events

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 13:00:00 EST

Poet, scholar, and former NPF "Decades" conference keynote lecturer (1960s), Michael Davidson reads from his poetry on Thursday, November 15, 2007, then lectures from his forthcoming book, Concerto for Left Hand: Disability and the Defamiliar Body, on Friday, November 16. All the details here.

Sawako Nakayasu & Aaron Kunin Next Up in NWS

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:00:00 EST

The New Writing Series, cosponsored by the National Poetry Foundation and the UMaine English Department, welcomes Sawako Nakayasu and Aaron Kunin to Orono for a joint reading on Thursday, November 8. The event starts at 4:30pm in the Soderberg Auditorium on the University of Maine campus and is free & open to all. For more information about this event, click here.

Kyger on Jacket, Bernstein on Adam

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:00:00 EST

The wonderful web-native literary journal, Jacket, elegantly edited by John Tranter and Pam Brown, includes a special feature celebrating the publication of Joanne Kyger's About Now in its 34th (!) issue, under construction here. There you'll find Linda Russo's introduction to the volume, a reader's response by Jane Falk, and an essay by Dale Smith tracing the development of Kyger's poetics over the years.

In other on-line news, Charles Bernstein noted the publication of the Helen Adam Reader on his blog on 3 November.

Celebrating Helen Adam

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 17:00:00 EST

The NPF's publication of A Helen Adam Reader, edited and introduced by the poet Kristin Prevallet, is being celebrated on both coasts this Halloween season.

On All Soul's Eve, November 1, at 7:30pm, the Poetry Center in San Francisco hosts an evening of homages, musical interpretations, and performances by Warner Jepson, Carl Grundberg, David Buuck, Chris Stroffolino, Roxanne Hamilton, Kevin Killian, Diane DiPrima, Mac McGinnes, Michael Davidson, Steve Dickison, and others. More information can be found on the Poetry Center's calendar (scroll down a bit). To download a poster for the event in pdf, click here.

On Saturday, November 10, the Bowery Poetry Club will host a "Helen Adam Praise Day" starting at 6pm. Bob Homan and Vito Ricci, Lee Ann Brown, Lisa Jarnot, Nada Gordon, and Joe Maynard and the Musties are among the slated performers. For more about this event, click here.

Poetry of the 1970s

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 09:00:00 EST

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!

Joanne Kyger book tour

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 11:59:00 EST

Poet Joanne Kyger, whose About Now: Collected Poems has just been published by the National Poetry Foundation, will be in Maine for a four-stop book tour beginning on the UMaine campus in Orono on Thursday, September 27th. For details about the tour, visit the New Writing Series blog.