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All events take place at the Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, Philadelphia (U of P).
Help us celebrate National Poetry Month -- come to College Green and
create a poem on our
MAGNETIC
POETRY WALL (co-sponsored by Magnetic
Poetry, the Laubach Foundation and the Mayor's Commission on
Literacy).
Look for events at the wall during the month of April.
Wednesday, 4/1
- 11:00 a.m.: Opening Ceremony at the Magnetic Poetry
Wall,
hosted by
Speakeasy!
- 4:00 p.m.: Poetry reading by Elizabeth
Spires, followed by a dinner.
Elizabeth Spires lives in Baltimore, MD, and is the author of four collections of poetry: Globe, Swan's Island, Annonciade and her most recent, Worldling.
"Elizabeth Spires's poems get exhilaratingly better and better. . . . She writes with intelligence and compassion and generously humane insight." --Anthony Hecht on Annonciade
- 8:30-10:30PM: Speakeasy: Poetry, Prose and Anything Goes, an open mic performance night hosted by undergraduate students Courtney Zoffness and Emily Cohen.
Thursday, 4/2
- Music by the Virgin House Band, from 8-10 pm.
Friday, 4/3
- 9:00 - 5:00PM: African Studies Department presents "Day With a
Scholar," an afternoon of
workshops and conversations with Ngugi wa Thiong'o of Kenya.
Ngugi stands out as a prolific writer and political activist. His works center on the role that language plays in literature, especially in terms of re-negotiating African contexts and aesthetic empowerment. He often chooses to write in his native Gikuyu instead of in English, a foreign language inherited from Kenya's former colonizers. Ngugi's books include: Moving the Centre: the struggle for cultural freedom; Decolonising the mind: the politics of language in African literature, and The River Between. For more info. about the conference, contact the African Studies Dept. at 898-6971.
Saturday, 4/4
- 12:00-4:00PM: Parents' luncheon hosted by Krissa Bolton, Arts Cafe.
- 1:00-3:00PM: Saturday Reading Project for kids (Rooms 203, Library, 209)! For more information, contact Nijmie Dzurinko.
Sunday, 4/5
- Noon-6:00PM: Virgin House Band rehearsal, Arts Cafe.
- 7:00PM: Benefit screening of Butterflies on the Scaffold (Mariposas en el Andamio), hosted by Planning Committee member Nijmie Dzurinko. Butterflies is a documentary film about the drag culture in a Cuban community outside of Havana. Gender and post-revolutionary Cuban society are the central themes. Transvestites and their parents, community residents and workers all contribute their personal experiences relating to the drag cabaret performances given for construction workers in the area. Director Margaret Gilpin's film gives voice to a marginalized segment of Cuban society, with emotion and depth.
Monday, 4/6
- 5:15-7:15PM: Penn and Pencil Club meeting. Creative writing
workshop for Penn and Health Systems staff. In room #209.
- 6:00-8:00PM: The Alumni Writers
Series presents Jennifer Egan
(C'85)(pictured at right).
Egan, author of The Invisible Circus & Emerald City (Picador USA), is a Thouron Fellow and a recent recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her stories & nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, GQ, Mademoiselle, Ploughshares, & The New York Times Magazine. She lives in New York City.
Tuesday, 4/7
- 4:30-6:00PM: Planning Committee Meeting. If you would like to
join the Kelly Writers House planning committee, email us at wh@writing.upenn.edu.
- 7:00PM: Talking Film welcomes scriptwriter & film producer
Harry Birckmayer. Birckmayer is the producer & co-writer of the
cult classic Party Girl, starring Parker Posey. Room 202.
- 7:00PM: Musical performance by The Things, an avantgarde jazz ensemble led by Josh Schuster. In the Arts Cafe.
Wednesday, 4/8
- Meeting for the Book Club, led by Travis Liberty, Room 209.
Thursday, 4/9
- Spoken word/music collaboration between Virgin House Band & Speakeasy.
Friday, 4/10
- Easter/Passover
Saturday, 4/11
- 1:00-3:00PM: Saturday Reading
Project for kids (Rooms 203, Library, 209)! For more
information, contact Nijmie
Dzurinko.
- 3:00-7:00PM: Virgin House Band rehearsal, Arts Cafe.
- 12 Midnight: LIVE at the
Writers House #4 with WXPN
88.5.
Season Finale, featuring Chris Stroffolino, author of several books & chapbooks, including Light as a Fetter (Situations Press) and the forthcoming Stealer's Wheel (Hard Press). He recently published his PhD in English Literature from SUNY-Albany and currently lives & teaches in Brooklyn.
Sunday, 4/12
- 8:00-10:00PM: Creative Writing Workshop, hosted by Anthony Scutti.
Monday, 4/13
- 6:00-8:00PM: Screening for Mike Magee's "America in Black and White" class.
Tuesday, 4/14
- The Freelance Journalism Workshop welcomes journalist Murray
Dubin, reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He
specializes
in writing about the city, and has written a history of South
Philadelphia, South Philadelphia: Mummers, Memories, and the Melrose
Diner. Dubin's visit is co-sponsored by the Writers House Freelance
Journalism Workshop, led by Paul Sherman. If you are interested in the workshop or want more
information, email
Paul.
- 6:30-7:30PM: Dinner (please RSVP to wh@writing.upenn.edu)
- 7:30-10:00PM: Conversation
- 7:00PM: Talking Film screenwriting workshop.
Wednesday, 4/15
- Visit by Kenneth Koch (pictured
at
right, photo by Larry Rivers).
- 7:00PM Reading
- 8:00PM Dinner (tentative--to be confirmed in late March)
Koch, a professor at Columbia University, is the author of 15 books of poetry, including One Train (1994), On the Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems, 1950-1988 (1994), Seasons on Earth (1987), and Days and Nights (1977), as well as numerous works of fiction, essays and plays, many of which have been produced in New York. He received Yale University's Bollingen Prize in 1995.
A recording of this event was made available as part of the PENNsound project. The recording can be found here.
Thursday, 4/16
- 5:00-7:00PM: Opening for a show of Rebekah Grossman's art books, in
the Arts Cafe.
Rebekah explains:
The books are hand-made, one of a kinds, all miniatures, mixed media, combining fragmented text and image. While not exactly poetry, the books operate as a poetic, combining found images, often pragmatic (such as diagrams), and text constructed from/condensed out of likewise "found" sources, specifically the mixed paper recycling bin on the 4th floor of Bennett, catelogues for health and accessories, gardening catalogues, junk mail, and product packaging, some of which I find on the streets during my walks to through West Philadlphia. Some of the books are very pristine in appearance, some deliberately "junky".
This series of books is part of an ongoing exploration for conducting an ethnography of the body--which is also part of my academic work (I am a PhD student in Folklore and Folklife), and so a hybrid of art and theory. There is a theme of the body in all the works, and together they tap into the lexicon of the body, from the marketplace to the academy, circulating in our (contemporary American) culture.
There will be a gallery talk at 5:30 in which I'll discuss materials & method in greater deatil.
- 8:00-10:00PM: Music by the Virgin Quintet. The V-5 will be selling copies of their brand-new eponymous album, released on Handwritten Records. If you would like to order a copy, contact Nate Chinen.
Friday, 4/17
- 2:00-4:30PM: Celebration of writers from Adult Literacy programs from around the city, at the Magnetic Poetry Wall. Sponsored by the Mayor's Commission on Literacy. For more information, call the Writers House (746-POEM) or Kevin Brady at the Mayor's Commission (685-6602).
Saturday, 4/18
- 1:00-3:00PM: Saturday Reading Project for kids (Rooms 203, Library, 209)! For more information, contact Nijmie Dzurinko.
Sunday, 4/19
Monday, 4/20
- 5:30-7:00 p.m.: Reading by members of the Penn
and Pencil Club, a creative writing workshop for Penn and
Health System staff. Refreshments will be served.
- 8:30 p.m.: Reading by members of the Writers House Planning Committee at Barnes & Noble, 18th & Walnut Sts.
Tuesday, 4/21
- Talking Film celebrates
its one-year anniversary with a workshop and screening featuring
director/producer Bob Gosse and
producer/co-founder Brandon
Rosser of
the Shooting Gallery, producers of Slingblade,
illtown and Niagara, Niagara.
- 5:00-7:00 pm: Shooting Gallery production screening
- 7:00-9:00 pm: Workshop and Dialogue, refreshments served
- 8:00PM: Final meeting for the Freelance Journalism Workshop, hosted by Paul Sherman.
Wednesday, 4/22
- 5:00-6:00PM: Open rehearsal for Penn Musicians Against
Homelessness,
a a gathering of student musicians playing classical music in small
chamber ensembles. Their spring concert will be a benefit for Habitat for
Humanity and Empty the Shelters.
- 8:30-10:30PM: Speakeasy: Poetry, Prose and Anything Goes, an open mic performance night hosted by undergraduate students Courtney Zoffness and Emily Cohen.
Thursday, 4/23
- 4:30-6:00PM: Planning Committee Meeting. If you would like to
join the Kelly Writers House planning committee, email us at wh@writing.upenn.edu.
- 5:30-7:00PM: Pottery Show, sponsored by the Artists' Guild.
Friday, 4/24
- END OF SPRING CLASSES
- 8:00-10:00PM: Creative Writing Workshop, hosted by Anthony Scutti.
Saturday, 4/25
- 11:00-2:30PM: Mayor's Commission on Literacy sponsors a Family
Literacy Day at the Magnetic Poetry
Wall on College Green. For more
information, call the Writers House (746-POEM) or Kevin Brady at the
Mayor's Commission (685-6602).
- 1:00-3:00PM: Saturday Reading
Project for kids (Rooms 203, Library, 209)! For more
information, contact Nijmie
Dzurinko.
- 4:00PM: Dystopia presents
a taping with French 75, a local percussion group. The performance
will later be aired on WXPN radio, 88.5 FM.
- 8:00-10:00PM: Full Circle, an open mic for Philadelphia area poets, hosted by Cecily Kellogg and Charlie O'Hay and featuring Temple professors Toby Olson and Bill Van Wert.
Sunday, 4/26
- 8:00-10:00PM: Creative Writing Workshop, hosted by Anthony Scutti.
Monday, 4/27
- 4:00PM: Poetry reading by Greg Djanikian's English 113 class, Arts Cafe.
Tuesday, 4/28
- 8:00-10:00PM: Freelance Journalism Workshop, led by Paul Sherman, a former journalist who has published stories in The New York Times, Time magazine, The Miami Herald, and other publications. All are welcome! If you are interested in the workshop or want more information, email Paul.
Wednesday, 4/29
- All day marathon reading in celebration of National Poetry Month, at the Magnetic Poetry Wall on College Green. For more information, contact us.
Thursday, 4/30
- 6:00-8:00PM: Reading by David Mus, translator of Mallarme.
- 9:00PM: The Virgin
House
Band welcomes alto saxophonist Julian
Pressley.
Julian Pressley has worked with such musical legends as the Temptations, the Four Tops, Ray Charles and Roy Haynes. He is currently a touring member of the Illinois Jacquet Band, and lives in South Jersey. This performance marks his second engagement with the Virgin House Band at the Writers House.
