WEDNESDAYS @ 4 PLUS

FALL 2003 - POETRY & PROSE
THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, BUFFALO (AMHERST CAMPUS)

Barrett Watten
Talk: “Negativity”
Fri., Aug. 29, 8 pm; Rust Belt Books (202 Allen Street, Buffalo)

Poet and critic, Barrett Watten is the author of numerous books including Total Syntax, Frame (1971-1990), and Bad History. His talk on “Negativity” emerges from his most recent collection of essays, The Constructivist Moment: From Material Text to Cultural Poetics. Watten lives in Detroit where he is Associate Professor of English at Wayne State University.


Arthur Sze
Talk: "Truth's Arrow: The Art of Translating Chinese Poetry"
Tue., Sept. 9, 12:30 pm; 538 Clemens Hall
Poetry Reading
Wed., Sept. 10, 4 pm; CFA Screening Room

Sze teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. His most recent books are The Redshifting Web and The Silk Dragon: Translations from the Chinese.

Thomas Sayers Ellis and Douglas Manson
Poetry Reading
Fri., Sept. 12, 8 pm; The Hibiscus Room at Just Buffalo, 2495 Main St., 5th Floor

Ellis is a contributing editor of Callaloo and his first collection The Good Junk (1996) was published in the Graywolf annual Take Three. He is also the author of a chapbook The Genuine Negro Hero, (Kent State University Press, 2001). Douglas Manson is author of Love Sounds (Like Perfidy) (2003) and Topographic Resolution (2000).

Kalevala
Talk: An Introduction to the Kalevala and the Process of Giving Voice to It
Tues., Sept. 16 at 12:30 pm; 538 Clemens Hall
Performance: Wed., Sept. 17, 4 pm; CFA Sceening Room

Performance in Finnish and English, accompanied by flute.  The Finnish epic, performed by Aili Flint, who teaches in Finnish Studies at Columbia; Ulla Suokko, a concert flutist; and Tuomas Hiltunen, an actor.

Andrew Levy
Poetry Reading
Date & Time: Postponed until Spring, 2004

Andrew Levy is the author of Ashoka (Zasterle), Paper Head Last Lyrics (Roof), Elephant Surveillance to Thought (Meow), Curve 2 (Potes & Poets), Curve (O Books), and other books. He edits, with Bob Harrison, the arts and poetry journal, Crayon.

Leslie Scalapino
Poetry Reading
Wed., Sept. 24, 4pm; CFA Screening Room
Talk: Wed., Sept. 24 12:30 pm; 438 Clemens Hall

Poet, novelist, playwright, and publisher, Leslie Scalapino is the author of over twenty books including Defoe (Sun and Moon, 1994), That They Were At The Beach (North Point Press, 1985), The Return of Painting; The Pearl; and Orion: A Trilogy (North Point Press, 1991), New Time (Wesleyan, 1999), The Public World/Syntactically Impermanence (Wesleyan, 1999), and, in collaboration with Petah Coyne, It's Go In Quiet Illumined Grass Land (Post-Apollo Press, 2002). Since its inception in the mid-eighties, her press O Books has produced over 50 books of poetry and numerous anthologies including the recent Enough, a collection of new writing in the context of 9/11 and the U.S.-led war on Afghanistan.

ELEVATOR: The Grid Project
Opening and Reading
Sat., Sept. 27, 8:00 pm Just Buffalo's Hibiscus Room

Featuring readings by participants in and out of the poetics program and artist books by Amy Stalling.

Lytle Shaw
Poetry Reading
Wed., Oct. 1, 4 pm; CFA Screening Room

Co-editor of Shark and curator of the Line Reading Series at The Drawing Center, Shaw’s books include A Side of Closure and Cable Factory 20. Most recently, Shaw joined the English Department at New York University.

If All Of Buffalo Read The Same Book
Thurs., Oct. 2-4: Lorene Cary

Tomaz Salamun
Poetry Reading with Thom Ward and Peter Ramos

Fri., Oct. 10, 8 pm; The Hibiscus Room at Just Buffalo, 2495 Main St., 5th Floor

One of Europe’s most popular and prolific poets, Tomaz Salamun was born in Zagreb, Croatia, and raised in Koper, Slovenia. His most recent books are Feast: Poems, and The Four Questions of Melancholy: Selected Poems 1964-1994. Thom Ward is editor of Boa Editions and author of Small Boat with Oars of Different Size.  Peter Ramos has two chapbooks: Short Waves and Watching Late-Night Hitchcock & Other Poems—forthcoming.

Buffalo Indie Lit Luau
Small Press Book and CLMP Magazine Fair
Fri., Oct. 10, 9 am – 4 pm and Sat., Oct. 11; 9 am - 1 pm

Small Press Mega Reading Fri., 3-6 pm. Panels Fri., 9 am, 10:45 am, and 1:15 pm, and Sat., 9 am and 10:45 pm; Medaille College.

Reading Crawl Sat., 2 pm, Slope/Slope Editions/Verse Press authors; Rust Belt Books.
Sat., 3:30 pm, Starcherone Books New Fiction extravaganza; Talking Leaves Books, Main Street. Sat., 5 pm, Readers TBA. @ Just Buffalo Literary Center.

Forrest Gander
Poetry Reading
Sat., 8 pm. Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center. BILL party to follow.

Gander is the author of Torn Awake (2001), Science & Steepleflower (1998), Deeds of Utmost Kindness (1994), Lynchburg (1993), and Rush to the Lake (1988). Gander is Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Director of the Graduate Program in Literary Arts at Brown University and keeps a small orchard outside of Providence, Rhode Island.

Rachel Tzvia Back
Poetry Reading
Wed., Oct. 15, 4 pm; CFA Screening Room

Rachel Tzvia Back’s collection of poetry entitled Azimuth was published in 2001 by Sheep Meadow Press. Back is also the author of Led by Language: the Poetry and Poetics of Susan Howe (University of Alabama Press).

Clayton Eshleman
Talk: “Charles Olson and the Archaic”
Wed., Oct. 22, 4 pm; Poetry and Rare Books Collection
Talk, “Upper Paleolithic Imagination and the Construction of the Underworld.”
Thurs., Oct. 23, 4 pm; Poetry and Rare Books CollectionPoetry Reading
Thurs., Oct. 23, 8 pm , The Hibiscus Room at Just Buffalo, 2495 Main St., 5th Floor

Between 1967 and the present, Clayton Eshleman founded and edited two of the most seminal and highly regarded literary magazines of the period, Caterpillar and Sulfur. His most recent books are Companion Spider, Juniper Fuse, My Devotion and Everwhat.

Peter Culley and Bernadette Mayer
Poetry Reading
Fri., Oct., 24, 8 pm; Just Buffalo's Hibiscus Room

Peter Culley was born in 1958 and has published 5 books of poetry including The Climax Forest (Leech Books, 1995) and Hammertown (New Star, 2003). His writings on art have appeared in numerous catalogues and publications, including Mosses from an Old Manse He lives in South Wellington on Vancouver Island. Bernadette Mayer's work has been influencing American poetry for over three decades. Her many books, include Moving (1964), Memory (1975), Studying Hunger (1975), Midwinter Day (1982), Sonnets (1989), The Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters (1994) and Another Smashed Pinecone (1998).  She lives in Upstate New York where she continues to teach poetry.

Trevor Joyce
Poetry Reading
Wed., Oct., 29, 4 pm CFA Screening Room

Born in Dublin, Trevor Joyce has published nine volumes of poetry, including The Poems of Sweeny Peregrine (1976), his working of the middle-Irish Buile Suibhne, and stone floods (1995), which was nominated for the Irish Times Literature Prize for Poetry. His most recent publications are with the first dream of fire they hunt the cold: A Body of Work 1966-2000 (NWP & Shearsman Books, 2001) and the audio CD Red Noise of Bones (Coelocanth & Wild Honey Press, 2001).

Re-Reading Louis Zukofsky’s Bottom
A Symposium for Poets, Scholars, and Students
Fri., Oct. 31st, 12:30 pm - 6:30 pm & Sat., Nov. 1st, 10 am - 4 pm; 420 Capen Hall

A two day symposium revisiting Louis Zukofsky’s seminal work, Bottom: on Shakespeare. This event will feature two workshops devoted to working-papers on Bottom with Gregg Biglieri and Louis Cabri, as well as presentations from Bob Perelman and Mark Scroggins. Perelman is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, whose critical works include The Trouble With Genius and The Marginalization of Poetry as well as numerous books of poetry. Scroggins is the author of Louis Zukofsky and the Poetry of Knowledge. He is currently writing the first official Zukofsky biography.

Rachel Blau DuPlessis
Talk
Wed., Nov. 5, 12:30 pm; 438 Clemens Hall
Poetry Reading
Wed., Nov. 5, 4 pm; CFA Screening Room

A poet, critic, essayist and editor, DuPlessis’ most recent books include Genders, Races, and Religious Cultures in Modern American Poetry, 1908-1934, and Drafts 1-38, Toll (Wesleyan).  She is Director of the Creative Writing Program at Temple University.

Marie Ponsot
Oscar Silverman Annual Poetry Reading
Fri., Nov. 7, 8 pm; Baird Hall

A native New Yorker, Marie Ponsot’s most recent books include Springing (Knopf, 2002) and The Bird Catcher (1998), winner of the National Book Critics Award.

Steve McCaffery
Sound Poetry Performance
Sat., Nov. 8, 8 pm; Hallwalls, 2495 Main Street, Suite 425, Buffalo

McCaffery is the author of Seven Pages Missing and North of Intention. This sound poetry performance will provide a rare and historic performance of McCaffery's sound poetry, a body of work that has changed the history of this medium on a worldwide scale.

Tina Darragh and Dan Farrell
Poetry Reading
Wed., Nov. 12, 4 pm; CFA Screening Room

Tina Darragh's most recent projects are "opposable dumbs", and a collaboration with Marcella Durand "deep eco pre". She works as a reference librarian at Georgetown University. Dan Farrell’s books include the Inkblot Record (Coach House Press 2001) and Last Instance (Krupskaya 1999).

Alan Loney
Poetry Reading
Thurs, Nov. 13, 4 pm; Poetry and Rare Books Collection

Poet/printer Alan Loney made limited edition books by hand from 1974 to 1998, most recently as the printer and co-director of The Holloway Press in Auckland, New Zealand.  His seven collections of poetry include Mondrian's Flowers, dear Mondrian, Erasure Tapes and Sidetracks.

Simon Cutts and Erica Van Horn
Discussion & Exhibition of Coracle Press Books.
Fri., Nov. 14, 12:30- 1:30 pm; Poetry and Rare Books Collection

Simon Cutts is a poet and publisher of the legendary Coracle Press. Erica Van Horn is a writer and book artist.  Coracle is currently located at Ballybeg, Clonmel, Tipperary, Ireland.

Ethan Paquin, Matthew Zapruder, Tim McPeek
Poetry Reading
Fri., Nov. 21, 8 pm; The Hibiscus Room at Just Buffalo, 2495 Main St.

Paquin is editor of Slope/Slope Editions and author of The Makeshift and Accumulus. Zapruder is editor of Verse press and author of American Linden. McPeek is a founder of the experimental theater company Blue Garrote Collective and author of Peloria.

ALL EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC (EXCEPT AS NOTED)

“Wednesdays at 4 Plus” is a Poetics Program production sponsored, in part, by the James H. McNulty Chair, Department of English (Dennis Tedlock); the Samuel P. Capen Chair of Poetry and Humanities (Robert Creeley); the David Gray Chair of Poetry and Letters, Department of English (Charles Bernstein); the Butler Chair, Department of English;  Professor Susan Howe, Department of English; the Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture; the Melodia E. Jones Chair in French, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. The series is produced with the cooperation of The Poetry and Rare Books Collection (Robert Bertholf), the Department of Media Studies, the Center for the Arts, Talking Leaves Books, and Just Buffalo Literary Center.  Page designed by Kyle Schlesinger.  

Series coordinator: Professor Myung Mi Kim.
For further information call (716) 645-3810 or contact us at Mdunlap@buffalo.edu.