Wednesday

George Tysh was born in Passaic, NJ, and educated in Detroit. In Paris in the ’60s, he edited Blue Pig with poet David Ball, and collaborated with conceptual artists Christian Boltanski and Sarkis. From 1980 to 1991, he directed LINES: New Writing at the Detroit Institute of Arts, a series that brought more than 300 authors to read and discuss their works in the Motor City, and (with poet Chris Tysh) edited In Camera, a project devoted to works of the sexual imaginary. His latest collection, The Imperfect (United Artists Books), completes a sequence that includes Ovals (In Camera) and Echolalia (United Artists Books). Currently, he teaches at the Roeper School in Birmingham, MI.

Stephanie Young lives and works in Oakland. Her books of poetry are Picture Palace (in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni, 2008) and Telling the Future Off (Tougher Disguises, 2005). She edited Bay Poetics (Faux Press, 2006) and her most recent editorial project is Deep Oakland.

Friday

Heather Christle grew up in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. She is the author of the poetry collection The Difficult Farm (Octopus 2009), and a portfolio of her poems and other documents recently appeared in Slope. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, and is a Creative Writing Fellow at Emory University.

Andrew Dieck is originally from Philadelphia, PA. He now lives in Tivoli, NY where he works as a personal assistant. He has a BA from Bard College. His poems have appeared or will appear in The Bard Papers, Gerry Mulligan, and The West Wind Review.

Sunday

Please join the Poetry Project, Danspace Project, Ontological-Hysteric Theater and St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery for a celebration of Haitian culture. All proceeds from the evening will be donated to Partners in Health: Stand With Haiti.

Tickets are now available, and will be available at the door.

Sliding scale admission: $20-$75 General Audience

Reserved Seating: $75-$125

Readings by Amiri and Amina Baraka and Denizé Lauture.

Performance by Master Haitian Drummer Bonga!

Performance by John Zorn!

Many thanks to our good friends at Ugly Duckling Presse, who have generously designed and produced posters for the benefit!

Monday

In the mid-1980s Steve Evans did a serious stint under the headphones, listening to, cataloging, and transferring the decaying reel-to-reel collection that the Archive for New Poetry at UCSD had acquired from Poetry Project hero Paul Blackburn. Ever since, he’s been following and, when possible, contributing to the ongoing conversation about the analysis and interpretation of poems not just as printed texts but as voiced structures whose meaning can be “sounded” as well as seen. In this talk, Evans will share his recent thinking on the topic with special reference to Paul Blackburn’s practice as devoted “audiographer” of his age.
Steve Evans teaches poetry and poetics at the University of Maine, where he also coordinates the New Writing Series and does projects with the National Poetry Foundation. He has tended a website at www.thirdfactory.net since 2001.

Wednesday

Rae Armantrout was a National Book Awards finalist for her most recent book, Versed, published by Wesleyan in 2009. Next Life (Wesleyan, 2007), was chosen as one of the 100 Notable Books of 2007 by The New York Times. Other recent books include Collected Prose (Singing Horse, 2007), Up to Speed (Wesleyan, 2004), The Pretext (Green Integer, 2001), and Veil: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2001). Her poems have been included in anthologies such as American Hybrid (Norton, 2009), Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (1993), American Women Poets in the 21^st Century: Where Language Meets the Lyric Tradition, (Wesleyan, 2002),  The Oxford Book of American Poetry (Oxford, 2006) and  The Best American Poetry of 1988, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2007 and 2008. Armantrout received an award in poetry from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 2007 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008. She is Professor of Poetry and Poetics at the University of California, San Diego.

Norman Fischer is a zen priest. He is a former abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center, and the founder and teacher for the Everyday Zen Foundation. A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, where he studied with Ted Berrigan and Anselm Hollo, and made the acquaintance of many poets, including Alice Notley and Bob Perelman, he has been active in the poetry universe since the late 1970’s.  His works tend to involve various experiments with language as well an effort to evoke the zen way of looking at and being in the world.  Charles Bernstein has written of his work, “incandescently tranquil, his poems neither confront nor confirm, preferring to give company along the way.”  His zen comrade and poetic daddy, Philip Whalen, compared his work to “a Baccarat crystal paperweight, a smooth clear ball of glass containing intricate designs in many brilliant colors.” The latest of his many collections is Questions/Places/Voices/Seasons from Singing Horse press (2009).

Monday

Three collaborative works set language, music and film in immediate, improvised relations. Performing in various combinations, three short pieces will be presented: a structured improvisation for text and voice (Carla Harryman and Steve Benson); a free improvisation (Jon Raskin Quartet); and a scripted live film narration piece on two scenes featuring French actress Jeanne Moreau (Konrad Steiner and Carla Harryman). A larger ensemble piece will follow: “An Improvised Movie” with video, music and voice all in spontaneous interaction (Steven Benson, Konrad Steiner, and Raskin Quartet).

Steve Benson has presented work in poetry readings and improvisational poetry performance – solo and with collaborators – for over 33 years in the United States and Europe. Previous collaborators in live public performances have included writers Leslie Scalapino, Jackson Mac Low, Norman Fischer, Carla Harryman, Jean Day, Laura Moriarty, cris cheek, Allen Fisher, Stephen Rodefer, the Splatter Trio, and Jeff Friedman (choreographer). His work is represented online at PennSound, Ubu.com, whalecloth.org, slought.org, chax.org/eoagh, among other websites. His most recent books, documenting oral improvisation, process poetics, and written poems, are Blue Book from The Figures/Roof, Roaring Spring from Zasterle, and Open Clothes from Atelos. He is co-author, with nine other poets of the 1970s Bay Area Language Poetry community, of a ten-volume experimental autobiographical project, the final volume of which is now in preparation. Since 1996, he has worked as a clinical psychologist in private practice in a small town in Downeast Maine.

Carla Harryman is the author of fourteen books and numerous poets theater plays and texts for performance. Her recent books include Adorno’s Noise (Essay Press, 2008), Open Box (Belladonna, 2007), Baby (Adventures in Poetry, 2005), and Gardener of Stars (Atelos, 2001). Current performance works have emphasized polyvocal text, bilingualism, choral speaking voices, and music improvisation and have appeared in the United States, Canada, and Europe.  She is a co-author of The Grand Piano, a multi-authored serial work that locates its project in the San Francisco Bay Area writing scene between 1975-1980; a co-editor of Lust for Life: The Writings of Kathy Acker (Verso, 2006);  and the editor of a forthcoming special issue of The Journal of Narrative Theory focusing on non/narrative. A selection of readings and responses to her work is featured in the most recent issue of HOW/2. She serves on the faculty of the Department of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University and on the MFA faculty of the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College.

Filmmaker and curator Konrad Steiner lives in San Francisco. His engagement with the writing community includes video collaborations with Leslie Scalapino (text from her book-length poem, “way”) and Mac McGinnes (with text by James Schuyler), performance collaborations with Carla Harryman and Stephanie Young, and performances in SF’s Poets Theater. He has produced and performed live film narration events in SF, Los Angeles, Buffalo, Portland (OR) and New York, as well as screened his own films in galleries, auditoriums, microcinemas and living rooms across the world. With Irina Leimbacher he coproduces the kino21 no-profit film and performance series in San Francisco.

Highlights of Rova founding member Jon Raskin’s early career include his ’70s participation in new music ensembles directed by John Adams (San Francisco Conservatory of Music) and Dr. Barney Childs (University of Redlands). Before Rova, Raskin served as music director of the Tumbleweed Dance Company (1974-77), was a founding member of the Blue Dolphin Alternative Music Space and participated in the creation of the Farm- an art project that included a city farm, a community garden, Ecology Center, Dance and Theater companies and organized the creation of a city park. Highlights
as a member of Rova include composing a collaborative work for SF Taiko Dojo/Rova, working with Howard Martin on the installation work “Occupancy”, composing music for Mr. Bungle/ Rova, organizing the 30 year Anniversary mConcert of John Coltrane’s Ascension, performing the music of Miles Davis at the Fillmore with Yo Miles!, the Glass Head Project with Inkboat and the ongoing Electric Ascension Project.

Raskin has received numerous grants and commissions to work on a variety of creative projects: NEA composer grant for “Poison Hotel”, a theater production by Soon 3 (1988); Reader’s Digest/Meet the Composer (1992 & 2000); Berkeley Symphony commission (1995) and Headland Center for the Arts Residency 2009.

Besides over 30 recordings with Rova, Raskin’s recording experience include Anthony Braxton, Eight (+3) Tristano Compositions (1989), For Warne Marsh (1989) and The Bass & the Bird Pond with Tim Berne (1996), Wavelength Infinity- A Sun Ra Tribute, Between Spaces with Phillip Gelb, Dana Reason & Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley’s In C 25th Anniversary, and solo work on the Art Ship Series. His currents CD’s include Let’s go Juke Box Suite (Not Two) with the Rova Saxophone Quartet , JR Quartet (Rastascan) with Liz Allbee, George Cremaschi and Gino Robair, Music + One(Rastascan) a Improvisation compendium for improvisers to play along with and Kaolithic Music, Jaw Harp Music recorded in a 587 Gallon Vase(Evander Music). He is working on several new recordings, one with a JR Quartet for release in 2009, a Rova project of Graphic scores composed by Steve Adams and Jon Raskin, a compilation from the 2 + 2 series that Phillip Greenlief and Jon Raskin presented at the 21 Grand Performance Gallery in Oakland and a poetry and music project with Carla Harryman called “Open Box”.
Other groups are the Jon Raskin quartet featuring Liz Albee on trumpet John Shiurba on bass and Gino Robair, a duo with Kanoko Nishi on Koto and a trio with Matthew Goodheart and Vladimir Tarasov.

Jon Raskin Quartet: Jon Raskin, reeds and electronics; Liz Allbee, horns; John Shiurba, guitar; Ches Smith, drums and percussion.

Wednesday

Janet Hamill is the author of five books of poetry: Troublante (Oliphant Press), The Temple (Telephone Books), Nostalgia of the Infinite (Ocean View Books), Lost Ceilings (Telephone Books); and her most recent collection, Body of Water, published by Bowery Books, and nominated for the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Prize. She has released two CD’s of spoken word and music in collaboration with the band Moving Star. Flying Nowhere (Yes No Maybe Records, 2000) was produced by Lenny Kaye and executive-produced by Bob Holman; the CD featured cameo performances by Lenny Kaye and Patti Smith. Genie of the Alphabet (Not Records 2005) featured cameos by Lenny Kaye, Patti Smith, Bob Holman and David Amram.

Margaret Randall lived for almost a quarter century in Latin America: Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua. When she returned to the United States, in 1984, the Immigration and Naturalization Service ordered her deported because of opinions expressed in some of her books. With the help of many writers and others, she won her case in 1989. During the 1960s, out of Mexico City, Randall and Mexican poet Sergio Mondragon published the influential bi-lingual poetry journal El Corno Emplumado / The Plumed Horn. She has also done a great deal of translation from the Spanish, making such Latin American poets as Roque Dalton, Otto Rene Castillo, and others available to an English readership. Among Randall’s most recent books of poetry are Where They Left You For Dead (BookWorks), Stones Witness (The University of Arizona Press), and Their Backs To The Sea (Wings Press). My Town will be published by Wings in 2010. Randall lives with her partner, Barbara Byers, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from where she travels widely to read and speak.

Friday

A Similar But Different Quality is an experimental text-based journal unspecific to any genre. The sole parameter is that the work is text, which opens us to the surprise and poetry of language that is everywhere. Published occasionally, their manifesto reads:

Accidents. Words are everywhere and inevitably beautiful. What tries to be poetic is often not because true poetry is an accident. The poetry genre is paradoxically unpoetic, too narrow to contain the full beauty of language that permeates everyday conversation, movie dialogue, graffiti, theatre, song lyrics, notes, diary entries, grocery lists, receipts, rap, text messages, emails, spam, tweets, etc, etc. To poetry without boundaries, except the words. Not poetry, but words. To an immediate, unpretentious and zesty poetry.

Monday

Sign-In 7:45

Wednesday

This reading will celebrate the release of The Kenning Anthology of Poets Theater 1945-1985, a superb documentation of the emergence, growth, and varied fortunes of the form over decades of American literary history. The largest and most comprehensive anthology of its kind yet assembled, the volume collects classics of poets theater as well as rarities long out of print and texts from unpublished manuscripts and archives. Editors David Brazil and Kevin Killian will be joined by some of the contributors who will read or perform their work. With Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, Nada Gordon, Ted Greenwald, Sonia Sanchez and Fiona Templeton.