September 2017
Friday, 9/1
Saturday, 9/2
Sunday, 9/3
Monday, 9/4
Tuesday, 9/5
Yolanda Wisher & The Afroeaters
Maple Street Rag: An Improvisational Reading
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV: part 1, part 2
listen to an audio recording of this event
Philadelphia Poet Laureate Yolanda Wisher presents an improvisational reading from Maple Street Rag, a work-in-progress. Wisher's second volume of poems is a record of the genealogical journey she's been on since 2014, when she started researching her roots in Ambler, Pennsylvania, once known as the "asbestos capital of the world." Wisher's family lived on Maple Street in Ambler for generations, and she uses musical backdrops (like Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag"), unexpected heirlooms, DNA testing, and public records to trace, chart, prompt and shape the story of her fragmented family across centuries and continents. Wisher will read poems, share images, perform songs, and invite members of the audience to take part in a Q&A following the show. Featuring Jim Dragoni (guitar), Sirlance Gamble (drums) & Mark Palacio (double bass).
Wednesday, 9/6
Brodsky Gallery Opening: Things Fixed and Stuck
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
listen to an audio recording of this event
Our September show is organized around intentional objects — circumstantial, accumulated, habitual, sentimental — and what to make of, and from, them. This group show will consider spatial and discursive ways of positioning oneself that complicate what the production of material life looks like. Owen Ahearn-Browning, Aimee Gilmore, and Emily Slater, three interdisciplinary artists working in the hold and care of objects, will show work and the stories, orientations, and languages situated therein.
Open thru November, Things Fixed and Stuck will commence with a program on Wednesday, September 6, featuring an artist talk, a conversation, and a musical performance. There will be a print object produced for the occasion, and other objects for sale and for looking. Come support the artists, spend time with the work, and enjoy our reception!
With a serious interest in story-telling and time-based perspective,
Owen Ahearn-Browning creates through singing, performance art,
writing, comic book-making, and drawing. His narrative thread spans time and space,
pulling content from television and his own childhood with equally powerful immediacy
and sense of ownership. With these cryptic, humorous drawings on note cards, a fluid
feeling of connective understanding binds the viewer immediately to the work.
Deceptively simple statements of objective truths are both ironic and deeply sincere.
Ahearn-Browning's Book about Furniture was recently published
for the Philadelphia Art Book Fair. He has been creating artwork at Center for Creative
Works since 2014, and he lives in Bala Cynwyd.
Aimee Gilmore is a multi-media artist currently based out
of Philadelphia. She holds a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania,
and a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts with a minor in textile design from Moore College of
Art & Design. Aimee works in sculpture, installation and printmaking and explores the
topic of motherhood focusing on the continuously shifting and complex binaries, like
connection and separation that shape the role.
Emily (or E.)
Slater is an interdisciplinary artist based in Philadelphia. Her work looks at
relationships of reciprocal transformation and reconfiguration between bodies, spaces,
and language systems. In particular, she is interested in the alternative possibilities
that arise from the twisting and reshaping of our worlds. Emily received her BA with a
major in Fine Art and a minor in Art History from the University of Pennsylvania in
2016. Most recently, she has shown work at Tiger Strikes Astroid, the Woodmere Art
Museum, and Fjord Gallery in Philadelphia as well as The Luminary in St. Louis. Until
recently, she used Belshaw as her last name for studio work. IG: @emily.slater_
WEB: emilyslater.net.
Thursday, 9/7
Herman Beavers Book Party
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
listen to an audio recording of this event
Herman Beavers is Professor of English and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has been teaching African American Literature and Creative Writing since 1989. His poems have appeared in Whiskey Island, Cross Connect, Black American Literature Forum (presently titled The African American Review), Dark Phrases, The Cincinnati Poetry Review, Peregrine, The Painted Bride Quarterly, Callaloo, MELUS, The Langston Hughes Colloquy, Versadelphia, Cleaver Magazine, and American Arts Quarterly, as well as the anthology, Gathering Ground: A Cave Canem Reader. His chapbook, A Neighborhood of Feeling won first prize in the Doris Press Chapbook competition. He was among the first group of Cave Canem Fellows when the group was established in 1996. Since then, he has given readings in and around the Philadelphia area, including readings with Yusef Komunyakaa, Elizabeth Alexander, June Jordan, and Major Jackson and been featured on Live at the Kelly Writers House (on Penn's radio station, WXPN). His poems have been nominated for The Best American Poetry series, The Best of the Web, and nominated three times for The Pushcart Prize in Poetry. He has been a finalist for the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award, the Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize, and the Lena Miles Wever Poetry Prize. Dr. Beavers has recently completed work on a chapbook of poems, The Vernell Poems and a full length poetry manuscript, Even in Such Light. His chapbook, Obsidian Blues is forthcoming from Agape Editions as part of its Morning House Chapbook Series. He is now at work on a volume of poems that feature characters from Toni Morrison's Beloved. He lives in Burlington Township, NJ with his wife, Lisa, and their two children, Michael and Corinne.
Friday, 9/8
Kelly Writers House Activities Fair
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM throughout the house
The Kelly Writers House Activities Fair is an opportunity for new and returning students to explore the House. We'll have cupcakes and other snacks, writing stations, and plenty of ways for you to meet student leaders of various KWH writing initiatives (literacy outreach, magazines, writing exchange groups, and more).
Saturday, 9/9
Sunday, 9/10
Monday, 9/11
Planning Committee Meeting
5:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
RSVP: wh@writing.upenn.edu
From the time of its founding in 1995-1996, the Kelly Writers House has been run more or less collectively by members of its community. Our original team of intrepid founders— the group of students, faculty, alumni, and staff who wanted to create an independent haven for writers and supporters of contemporary writing in any genre—took for themselves the name "the hub." "Hub" was the generic term given by Penn's Provost, President, and other planners who hoped that something very innovative would be done at 3805 Locust Walk to prove the viability of the idea that students, working with others, could create an extracurricular learning community around common intellectual and creative passions. To this day, the Writers House Planning Committee refers to itself as "the hub"—the core of engaged faculty, student, staff, and alumni volunteers from whom the House's creative energy and vitality radiates.
Tuesday, 9/12
Lunch with YA novelist Jennifer Yu (C'16)
Kauders Lunch Program
Hosted by Jamie-Lee Josselyn
12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
rsvp: wh@writing.upenn.edu or (215) 746-POEM
watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
listen to an audio recording of this event
Jennifer Yu is a Boston resident and recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied creative writing. In her free time, she enjoys reading books she's too old for, roping unsuspecting friends into listening to her play the guitar and being far too invested in Boston sports teams. Most of her pop culture knowledge comes from binge-watching late-night talk show clips and occasional nervous forays into the depths of Tumblr. Find her online at byjenniferyu.tumblr.com or on Twitter: @yuontop.
Daedalus Quartet: Beethoven's Opus 132
With poets Thomas Devaney, Davy Knittle, Mary Osunlana (C'20), and Yolanda Wisher
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
Praised by The New Yorker as "a fresh and vital young participant in what is a golden age of American string quartets," the Daedalus Quartet, Penn's string quartet in residence, has established itself as a leader among a new generation of string ensembles. This performance of Beethoven's string quartets will also feature poetic responses to Quartet no. 15 in A minor, Op. 132 written for the occasion by four poets: Thomas Devaney, Davy Knittle, Mary Osunlana (C'20), and Yolanda Wisher.
The Daedalus Quartet, Penn's string quartet in residence, has impressed critics and listeners alike with the security, technical finish, interpretive unity, and sheer gusto of its performances. The New York Times has praised the Daedalus Quartet's "insightful and vibrant" Haydn, the "impressive intensity" of their Beethoven, their "luminous" Berg, and the "riveting focus" of their Dutilleux. The Washington Post in turn has acclaimed their performance of Mendelssohn for its "rockets of blistering virtuosity," while the Houston Chronicle has described the "silvery beauty" of their Schubert and the "magic that hushed the audience" when they played Ravel, the Boston Globe the "finesse and fury" of their Shostakovich, the Toronto Globe and Mail the "thrilling revelation" of their Hindemith, and the Cincinnati Enquirer the "tremendous emotional power" of their Brahms. Since its founding the Daedalus Quartet has performed in many of the world's leading musical venues; in the United States and Canada these include Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center (Great Performers series), the Library of Congress, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and Boston's Gardner Museum, as well as on major series in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. Abroad the ensemble has been heard in such famed locations as the Musikverein in Vienna, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, and in leading venues in Japan.
Thomas Devaney is the author of four poetry collections, Calamity Jane (Furniture Press Books, 2014), The Picture that Remains (The Print Center, 2014), A Series of Small Boxes (Fish Drum, 2007), The American Pragmatist Fell in Love (Banshee Press, 1999), and a nonfiction book Letters to Ernesto Neto (Germ Folios, 2005). Devaney teaches creative writing at Haverford College where his collaborative projects with faculty and staff include the poetry tree tour "Under An Oak" and "INSIDE," a meditation on space and confinement. Devaney is also the editor of ONandOnScreen, an e-journal featuring poems and videos. He was featured on WHYY TV-12's Friday Arts Program (Ocotber 2012) for his book The Picture that Remains.
Davy Knittle is the author of the chapbooks empathy for cars / force of july (horse less press 2016) and cyclorama (the operating system 2015). He lives in Philadelphia, where he curates the City Planning Poetics series at the Kelly Writers House.
Yolanda Wisher is the current Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, a distinction given to one talented poet, who is chosen as a leader in their discipline and is dedicated to advancing their art form and the city's poetry community. During her two-year term, Wisher has engaged with the city of Philadelphia through events, community service activities, speaking, and has served as a mentor for the city's Youth Poet Laureate. A champion of poetry and education, Wisher uses her platform to speak on the African American experience and the complexities of womanhood. Wisher has been a beneficiary of and a force within Philadelphia's poetry scene for the past two decades, while promoting poetry as a public, healing, and activist art.
Wednesday, 9/13
Speakeasy Open Mic Night
7:30 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV: part 1, part 2
listen to an audio recording of this event
Our student-run open mic night welcomes all kinds of readings, performances, spectacles, and happenings. Bring your poetry, your guitar, your dance troupe, your award-winning essay, or your stand up comedy to share.
Thursday, 9/14
Ben Lerer
Entrepreneurial Journalism
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
listen to an audio recording of this event
Ben Lerer is the CEO of newly-formed Group Nine Media — a new digital media holding company consisting of Thrillist, NowThis, The Dodo and Seeker. He is the co-founder of Thrillist. Lerer was among Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year Award Winners, Vanity Fair's Next Establishments, Crain's "40 under 40", Forbes list of "Most Powerful CEOs Under 40", AdWeek's "Young Influentials", Inc's "30 under 30" and Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 5 Entrepreneurs of the Year." Ben is also the Managing Director of Lerer Hippeau Ventures, New York's most active early-stage technology fund. He chairs the Board of Directors for Urban Upbound, a New York non-profit organization and is an Associate Member of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS). Ben sits on the Board of Directors for Casper, the Advisory Board for Refinery29, the Board of RaisedByUs and is the Chairman of the Board of Directors for JackThreads.
Friday, 9/15
Saturday, 9/16
Sunday, 9/17
Poetry & Music Festival
1:30 PM: Jake Marmer and Frank London
2:15 PM: Julie Patton and Paul Van Curen
3:00 PM: Bob Holman and Papa Susso
watch and listen via PennSound:
Jake Marmer is a poet, performer, & educator. His first record, Hermeneutic Stomp (Blue Thread Music, 2013) brought together diverse poetic traditions, jazz, klezmer, & new & ancient improvisation techniques. Jake's poetry collection, Jazz Talmud, was published by Sheep Meadow Press in 2012. Currently a doctoral candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center, he teaches at Kehillah Jewish High School in Palo Alto, CA. He frequently contributes to Tablet Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Hyperallergic, and is a co-founder of the poetry retreat at the KlezKanada Festival.
Trumpeter/composer Frank London is a member of the Klezmatics, Hasidic New Wave, has performed with John Zorn, LL Cool J, Mel Torme, Lester Bowieπs Brass Fantasy, LaMonte Young, They Might Be Giants, David Byrne, Jane Siberry, Ben Folds 5, Mark Ribot, Maurice El Medioni and Gal Costa, and is featured on over 100 cds. His own recordings include Invocations (cantorial music); Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars Di Shikere Kapelye and Brotherhood of Brass; Nigunin and The Zmiros Project (Jewish mystical songs, with Klezmatics vocalist Lorin Sklamberg); The Debt (film and theater music); and four releases with the Hasidic New Wave. His projects include the folk-opera A Night In The Old Marketplace (based on Y.L. Peretz's Bay nakht oyfn altn mark), Davenen for Pilobolus and the Klezmatics, Great Small Works' The Memoirs Of Gluckel Of Hameln and Min Tanaka's Romance. He composed music for John Sayles' The Brother From Another Planet and Men With Guns, Yvonne Rainer's Murder and Murder, the Czech-American Marionette Theaterπs Golem and Tamar Rogoff's Ivye Project. He was music director for David Byrne and Robert Wilsonπs The Knee Plays, collaborated with Palestinian violinist Simon Shaheen, taught Jewish music in Canada, Crimea and the Catskills, and produced CD's for Gypsy Ledgend Esma Redzepova, and Algerian Pianist Maurice el Medioni. He has been featured on HBO's Sex and the City, at the North Sea Jazz Festival and the Lincoln Center Summer Festival, and was a co-founder of Les Miserables Brass Band and the Klezmer Conservatory Band.
Julie Ezelle Patton's recent work appears in Best American Experimental Writing 2016; What I Say: Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America (University of Alabama Press), Poetry and Poetics Reviews, ed. Charles Bernstein, The Brooklyn Rail. This year, 2017, opportunities brought Julie to Naropa's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Sarah Riggs & Omar Barrada's Tamaas translation studio in Paris, France, MaelstrÖm fiEstival #11 in Brussels, Belgium and here, Kelly Writers House, Poetry & Music Festival. Julie is a recipient of The Foundation for Contemporary Art 2015 Grants to Artists Award, Philip Whalen Memorial Grant, Acadia Foundation, among other honors. Her work and creative practice has also been sustained by Tender Buttons Press, Belladonna, Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, Ecopoetics Journal, Crayon Magazine, Kavayantra, and Oysi. Collaborators Daria Fain & Robert Kocik's Commons Choir, dancer Sally Silvers, composer/instrumentalists Ralph Alessi, Uri Caine, Ravi Coltrane, Drew Gardner, poets Anne Waldman, Charles Bernstein, James Hart lll, helped hold spaces supporting Julie's multi-dimensional poetics.
Julie's text, the Building by the side of the Road, in About Place Journal: Rust Belt Tales, offers a glimpse of Let it Bee Ark Hives, a living art collection Julie established in Cleveland, Ohio, as a flagship for the work of her mother, visual artist Virgie Ezelle Patton and other artists, as well as the steadfast earth/nature awareness of her father, Cleve Walter Patton. Julie enjoys jamming with Paul Van Curen in Cloud Flowers.
Paul Van Curen is an imporvising guitarist and musician living in Cleveland, Ohio. He plays with Cloud Flowers in Detroit/Celveland (featuring Julie Patton and drummer James Hart II) and SwingSet/CarHood in Cleveland, in addition to his long standing duo project with Julie Patton including shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Cleveland), the Poetry Project, the Stone, and Torn Page (all in NYC), the Scarab Club (Detroit), the Arizona Poetry Center (Tucson) and the San Francisco Poetry Archives. He studied and later played with the great jazz guitarist Bill de Arango.
Influnces include SunRa70sMilesMagikMarkersJosephBeuysHankWilliamsThomasMertonBilldeArango AliceColtraneRayYoungBearSonnySharrockTheloniusMonkKurtCobainRoscoeHolco mbAlbertAylerBobDylanHenryFlyntJohnColtraneNeilYoungFrankGehryJohnLeeHoo kerLorenConnorsVelvetUndergroundMalcolmLowryRevAlbertWagnerSlyStoneVirgi eEzellePattonLaMonteYoungSkipSpenceSamuelBeckettJuniorKimbroughJohnCageJ ohnnyCashHunagPoPeteCoseyRobertFrankJimiHendrixLouisArmstrongKeithRichar ds and many, many more.
Alhaji Papa Susso is a griot, master kora player, and director of the Koriya Musa Center for Research in Oral Tradition. He was born in the village of Sotuma Sere region in the Upper River Division of The Republic of Gambia, West Africa, and currently divides his time between Gambia and New York City. Papa Susso hails from a long line of Griots (traditional oral historians) of the Mandinka people. He was taught the kora by his father and has been playing since the age of five. Susso travels widely, and has been a premier performer in the "American Classic African Portraits" by Hannibal Peterson. He performed at Carnegie Hall twice, for symphonies in Baltimore, Detroit, Kalamazoo, San Antonio, St Louis and Chicago; the Louisiana Philharmonic; and Kazumi Watanabe Opera, Tokyo, Japan.
Bob Holman and Papa Susso met in Asmara, Eritrea in 2000; they were both participants in the seminal conference, Against All Odds: African Languages and Literature in the 21st Century. Since then, they have toured the US, South and Central America and Africa, performing their singular blend of jeliya traditions and US contemporary poetry. In Sing This One Back To Me, Holman's collection with Coffee House Press, there are translations of ten of Papa's poems from Mandinke, Fulani and Bambara. Bob is the author of 16 other poetry collections, including The Cutouts (Matisse) (PeKa Boo Press) and A Couple of Ways of Doing Something (Aperture, a collaboration with Chuck Close). He has taught at Columbia, NYU, Bard, and The New School. As the original Slam Master and a director of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, creator of the world's first spoken word poetry record label, Mouth Almighty/Mercury, and the founder/proprietor of the Bowery Poetry Club, Holman has played a central role in the spoken word and slam poetry movements. A co-founder and co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance, Holman's study of hip-hop and West African oral traditions led to his current work with endangered languages. Holman is the producer and host of various films, including "The United States of Poetry" and "On the Road with Bob Holman." His most recent film, "Language Matters with Bob Holman," winner of the Berkeley Film Festival's Documentary of the Year award, was produced by David Grubin and aired nationally on PBS in 2015. Holman worked with language revitalization centers across Alaska and Hawaii in 2016, sponsored by the Ford Foundation. In 2017 he was Creative Consultant for LINES Ballet in San Francisco. He lives in New York City and is teaching at Princeton, fall 2017.
Monday, 9/18
MEDIA & JOURNALISM AT PENN
12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
Sponsored by the Creative Writing Program with Chloe Shakin, R.J. Bernocco, Mingo Reynolds, Dan Spinelli, and Dick Polman
moderated by Julia Bloch
rsvp: wh@writing.upenn.edu or (215) 573-POEM
watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
listen to an audio recording of this event
A roundtable discussion featuring students, staff and faculty devoted to how opportunities at Penn, from the Creative Writing Program's Journalistic Writing Minor to paid internship opportunities through the RealArts program to networking events at the Writers House, can prepare you for a career in reporting, editing, photojournalism, social media, or other areas of journalism. Open to all.
Chloe Shakin is a senior English major and Journalistic Writing minor. She serves on the Editorial and Business Boards of The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc. and Executive Board of 34th Street Magazine as Street's Audience Engagement Director. Chloe was given a RealArts stipend to work as a digital communications intern in the Mayor's Press Office in Philadelphia during the summer of 2016. This past summer, Chloe worked as a marketing intern at The New York Times on its Media Management team (which is responsible for generating digital subscriptions).
R.J. Bernocco is Associate Director of the RealArts@Penn program at University of Pennsylvania. RealArts@Penn connects Penn undergraduates with paid internship opportunities, mentorship prospects and arts related professional development. R.J. has been a part of the Penn community for eleven years. He holds a Bachelors degree in Film and Media Arts from Temple University as well as his Masters in Public Administration from University of Pennsylvania. In his down time, he can be found listening to records, browsing record stores or walking his dog around South Philly.
Mingo Reynolds is Director of Adminstration at the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing and Director of RealArts@Penn, which connects Penn undergraduates with paid internship opportunities, mentorship prospects and arts related professional development.
Dan Spinelli is a College senior from the Philadelphia suburbs and editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn's student newspaper. He has previously interned at The Philadelphia Daily News, POLITICO, and Forbes.
Dick Polman is the Maury Povich Writer in Residence at Penn as well as a political columnist for WHYY/Newsworks. As a 22-year staff reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, he covered five presidential campaigns as the paper's national political writer and columnist; helmed the London bureau as a foreign correspondent; covered the Philadelphia Phillies; and was a long-form contributor to the Inquirer's Sunday magazine. Prior to the Inquirer, he was a metro columnist on The Hartford Courant, and was the founding editor of an alternative newspaper, the Hartford Advocate.
Careers in Journalism & New Media
Ashley Parker (C'05), Jess Goodman (C'12), and Joe Pinsker (C'13), with moderator Stephen Fried (C'79)
5:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
rsvp: wh@writing.upenn.edu
Co-sponsored by the Povich Journalism Program, The Daily Pennsylvanian, the Creative Writing Program, and the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize
watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV: part 1, part 2
listen to an audio recording of this event
Our annual Careers in Media alumni panel — sponsored by KWH, the Daily Pennsylvanian, the Creative Writing Program, and the Nora Magid Mentorship Prize — focuses on how you can prepare for first jobs and careers in print, broadcast and online media, publishing, and related fields, as well as how to make decisions about extracurriculars, internships and grad school in these areas. This year's panel includes:
Ashley Parker is a White House reporter at the Washington Post. Previously, she worked at the New York Times for 11 years, where she covered politics — Mitt Romney in 2012 and Jeb Bush and Donald Trump in 2016 — and Congress, as well as other things. She started at the paper as Maureen Dowd's research assistant. She has also written for The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Glamour, The Huffington Post, The Washingtonian, The New York Sun, Philadelphia Weekly, and Chicago Magazine, and is an MSNBC political analyst. She graduated from Penn in 2005, with a double major in English (creative writing) and Communications.
Joe Pinsker is an associate editor at The Atlantic, where he writes and edits stories about business and economics. The pieces he writes typically focus on the intersection between money and culture, usually involving topics such as food, advertising, technology, and entertainment. He also covers academic research, often in the realms of social mobility, consumer psychology, and personal finance. At Penn, Joe studied English (with a concentration in Creative Writing) and was the Managing Editor of 34th Street. He graduated in 2013 and currently lives in Washington, DC.
Jessica Goodman is a senior editor at Cosmopolitan magazine. Previously, she was a digital news editor at Entertainment Weekly and an Entertainment Editor at HuffPost. Jessica graduated from the College in 2012 and from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism in 2013. While at Penn, she was the Editor-in-Chief of 34th Street Magazine.
Stephen Fried is an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the author of five acclaimed books, including Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the West—One Meal at a Time (named one of the Top Ten Books of the Year by the Wall Street Journal) and Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia (which introduced the word "fashionista" into the English language and inspired the Emmy-winning film Gia with Angelina Jolie.) A two-time winner of the National Magazine Award, Fried has written for Vanity Fair, GQ, The Washington Post Magazine, Rolling Stone, Glamour, Ladies' Home Journal, Parade and Philadelphia magazine. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, author Diane Ayres.
Tuesday, 9/19
A poetry reading by Cortney Lamar Charleston
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
listen to an audio recording of this event
Cortney Lamar Charleston (C'11) is the author of Telepathologies, selected by D.A. Powell for the 2016 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. In 2017, he was awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and he has also received fellowships from Cave Canem, The Conversation Literary Festival and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. His work has appeared in POETRY, New England Review, Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, River Styx and elsewhere.
Wednesday, 9/20
Thursday, 9/21
Friday, 9/22
Saturday, 9/23
Sunday, 9/24
Monday, 9/25
LIVE at the Writers House
7:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
LIVE at the Writers House is a long-standing collaboration of the people of the Kelly Writers House and of WXPN (88.5 FM). Six times annually between September and April, the Writers House airs a one-hour broadcast of poetry, music, and other spoken-word art, along with one musical guest -- from our Arts Cafe onto the airwaves at WXPN. "LIVE" is broadcast on WXPN. "LIVE" is made possible through the generous support of BigRoc and is produced by Alli Katz.
Tuesday, 9/26
Edible Books CONTEST
Creative Ventures program
5:00 PM throughout the first floor
rsvp: wh@writing.upenn.edu
Our Edible Book Contest will celebrate works of art inspired by books and created in kitchens. Past entries have included (somewhat) literal depictions of literary characters or scenes, punny interpretations of book titles, or cake-sculptures of actual books. Prizes will be awarded in a variety of categories (including best pun, most literary, most literal, yummiest, and most architectural). Everyone is welcome to browse the library of edible titles or to contribute their own. If you plan to make a book, please email wh@writing.upenn.edu with the title of your entry.
Wednesday, 9/27
Lunch with Alex Koppelman
Povich Journalism Program
12:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
rsvp: wh@writing.upenn.edu or (215) 746-POEM
watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
listen to an audio recording of this event
Alex Koppelman is senior editor for CNN Media. Prior to joining CNN, Koppelman was editorial director of Vocativ. He has also served as enterprise editor at Guardian US, and as politics editor of NewYorker.com, and was a senior writer at Salon.com. An Emmy and National Magazine Award winner, Koppelman is a 2005 Penn grad.
Patricia Lockwood
Bernheimer Symposium
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch: a video recording of this event via KWH-TV
listen to an audio recording of this event
Patricia Lockwood was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and raised in all the worst cities of the Midwest. She is the author of a memoir, Priestdaddy, and two poetry collections, Balloon Pop Outlaw Black and Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals, a New York Times Notable Book. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, and The London Review of Books. She lives in Savannah, Georgia.
Thursday, 9/28
Technicians of the Sacred: 50th anniversary
Multilingual Poetics Program
6:00 PM in the Arts Cafe
watch the reading: part 1 and part 2
listen to an audio recording of this event
Since its first publication in 1968, Jerome Rothenberg's Technicians of the Sacred has educated a generation of poets, artists, and readers to the multiple faces and possibilities of poetry throughout the world. It was hailed by Robert Creeley as "both a deeply useful work book and an unequivocal delight," and by the Los Angeles Times Book Review as one of the hundred most recommended American books of the last thirty-five years. Multilingual Poetics at Kelly Writers House is honored to celebrate the launch of UC Press's revised and expanded 50th-anniversary edition of Technicians with a special group-reading event, featuring Ahmad Almallah, Charles Bernstein, Julia Bloch, Laynie Browne, George Economou, Rochelle Owens, Ron Silliman, and Michelle Taransky, followed by a conversation with Rothenberg.
Jerome Rothenberg is an internationally celebrated poet, translator, anthologist, and performer with over ninety books of poetry and twelve assemblages of traditional and avant-garde poetry such as Technicians of the Sacred, Shaking the Pumpkin, and, with Pierre Joris and Jeffrey Robinson, Poems for the Millennium, volumes 1-3.