An announcement from David Abel:
In two poetry readings and one panel discussion over a two-week period, noted New York School poet and art critic Bill Berkson will make a rare appearance in the Pacific Northwest, to celebrate several recent publications: Portrait and Dream: New and Selected Poems (Coffee House Press); and Ted Berrigan (a collaboration with painter George Schneeman) and Sudden Address: Selected Lectures 1981-2006 (Cuneiform Press).
Spare Room reading series
Sunday, February 21, 7:30 pm
Concordia Coffee House * 2909 NE Alberta
$5.00 suggested donation
www.flim.com/spareroom
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If you are a Portland author, poet, zinester, cartoonist or publisher looking to publicize your new release(s), email us (portland@readinglocal.com): the title of the release, a brief description, when it will be available, and a link to where it can be purchased or pre-ordered. We will then help you to promote your new release by posting this information on the site.
New Release:
Pulling Apart, a new collection of poems from John Blackard, is now available for purchase. John will be reading from Pulling Apart on March 3rd at the Oregon Literary Review Readers’ Series at Blackbird Wineshop.
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If you are a Portland author, poet, zinester, cartoonist or publisher looking to publicize your new release(s), email us (portland@readinglocal.com): the title of the release, a brief description, when it will be available, and a link to where it can be purchased or pre-ordered. We will then help you to promote your new release by posting this information on the site.
New Release:
Slim Margin (WordTech Communications), a book of poems from Alison Apotheker, is now available for purchase.
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Poetry in Motion, a Literary Arts program, “brings poetry into the everyday lives of commuters by placing artfully designed poem cards on public buses and trains.” This year they are asking for your help in determining which poems will be selected for display.
You can take the quick survey and cast your vote here. Poems will begin to appear on TriMet buses and trains some time in April.
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Today’s interview is with Sid Miller, the founder and executive editor of Burnside Review, which has a new issue due out in April. In addition to his duties with the journal, Sid has two new poetry collections out, one entitled Dot-to-Dot, Oregon (Ooligan Press) and the other Nixon on the Piano (David Robert Brooks). In reading Dot-to-Dot, Oregon I found Miller’s poetry provided an entry point through which I could relate to a genre that has escaped me nearly all of my life. I immediately skipped to the section on Northeast Oregon and began to experience the places I grew up through anothers eyes. And although the language is beautiful enough to gain appreciation from the most seasoned critic, it was this context that allowed the poems to find a home within a novice like myself. I highly recommend you pick up both of these new collections, I promise they will not disappoint.
Sid will be reading from Dot-to-Dot, Oregon tomorrow (1-21) at 7:30pm at Powell’s Books on Hawthorne.
Click through to read the interview and an excerpt of Sid’s work.
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Untitled Country Review, Scot Siegel’s new poetry journal, is seeking submissions for its May 2010 publication. The journal is published quarterly in February (submit by January 15), May (by April 15), August (by Sept 15), and November (by October 15), and is seeking:
evocative (and provocative) poetry that effectively and eloquently reconciles the two (seemingly at-odds) terms in the journal’s title. In other words, we are interested in poetry that knows no boundaries, and that is at once challenging and accessible. We are interested in poetry that matters…
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Today’s Featured Book Event:
Spare Room presents Kyle Schlesinger, Charles Alexander, and Joel Bettridge (Concordia Coffee House, @7:30pm, $5.00 suggested donation):
Kyle Schlesinger is the proprietor of Cuneiform Press, recently relocated from New York to Texas, and coeditor of the journal Mimeo Mimeo. His latest book, What You Will, is due next month from New Lights Press; Charles Olson at Goddard College, which he edited, will be out from Effing Press in April. Kyle’s writings and research related to poetics, visual communication, and artist’s books can be found at www.kyleschesinger.com.
Charles Alexander is founder/director of Chax Press, publisher of innovative poetry and book arts editions. His books of poetry include Hopeful Buildings, Arc of Light / Dark Matter, Near or Random Acts, and Certain Slants. He shares a studio and life with Tucson visual artist Cynthia Miller. Lately he has been lost (or found) somewhere among the poetic waters of Ludovico Ariosto, Walter Ralegh, Marie de France, and David Jones. He’ll surface sometime soon . . . perhaps.
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David Biespiel’s latest poetry collection, The Book of Men and Women (UW Press), was selected by the Poetry Foundation for their Top Poetry of the Year. In the remarks on the announcement, Gina Rosemellia, Editorial Assistant for Poetry Magazine, had this to say, “In his book about regret, longing, and loss, Biespiel explores the intricacies of relationships between men and women in settings both real and imaginary.”
You can read our recent interview with Mr. Biespiel here, and Reading Local contributor Angela Allen’s review of The Book of Men and Women here.
An announcement from Sage Cohen:
Would you like to study poetry but can’t afford it? Sage Cohen is offering two scholarships for her Poetry for the People Level 1 and Level 2 classes (one per class) starting in mid January. Scholarship applications will be accepted through December 28, and winners will be announced on January 1 at Sage Cohen’s blog.
You can learn more and apply here.
This recap is authored by contributor Karen Munro. The Head of the UO Portland Library and a recipient of an MFA in Fiction from the Iowa Writers Workshop, Karen discusses books, reading, and writing on her wonderful blog Munrovian.
Melissa Sillitoe and the good folks of Show and Tell Gallery hosted another reading last night at Three Friends Coffee House. The reading series works like this: Melissa & Co. invite one performer, who might be a poet, fiction writer, musician, or professional plate-spinner. That person invites two friends to share the stage–and so, a great night is born.
Last night’s Number One Friend was Sage Cohen, author of Writing the Life Poetic and Like the Life, The World. Sage invited Kristin Berger and Sara Guest, who is–full disclosure–a friend of mine. I got the sense the room was full of friends: usually at poetry readings, people hold their applause until the end. Last night every poem got clapped for, until Kristin started dropping curtsies to the crowd.
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Today’s Featured Book Event:
CAFFEINATED ART No. 72 – Sage Cohen, Sara Guest and Kristin Berger (Three Friends Coffee House, @7:00pm): Sage Cohen is the author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry (Writers Digest Books, 2009) and the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World. She writes four monthly columns about the craft and business of writing and serves as Poetry Editor for VoiceCatcher 4. Sage’s muse menagerie includes: two dogs, three cats, one husband and one toddler.
Sara Guest is a program coordinator with Write Around Portland and a William Stafford Writing Fellow. This fall she’s co-teaching a class at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, working on new poems, meeting regularly with her fiction group, reading War and Peace and looking forward to starting a new novel in January.
Kristin Berger lives with her husband and two young children in Portland, Oregon, where she serves as an editorial member of VoiceCatcher. Kristin’s poetry and essays have appeared in Alimentum, Calyx, New Letters, and The Pedestal Magazine. She is the author of a poetry chapbook, For the Willing (Finishing Line Press, 2008), an Oregon Book Award nominee. Her non-fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
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Today’s Featured Book Event:
Spare Room presents Nico Vassilakis Crystal Curry (Concordia Coffee House, @7:30pm, $5 suggested donation): The Spare Room Reading Series features poetry from Nico Vassilakis and Crystal Curry.
Nico Vassilakis works with alphabet both textually and visually. Recent books include Protracted Type (Blue Lion), Disparate Magnets (BlazeVOX), staReduction (Book Thug), and Text Loses Time (Many Penny). His visual poems and videos have been shown at festivals and exhibitions of innovative language art, and can be found online at Flickr and YouTube. Nico is a founding member of Seattle’s Subtext Collective.
Crystal Curry’s poems and reviews have appeared both off and online in journals such as VERSE, Denver Quarterly, Conduit, Open City, The Hat, Octopus Magazine and Action, Yes. She is the author of the chapbook Logotherapy Pant (Cosa Nostra) and the forthcoming full-length collection Our Chrome Arms of Gymnasium, which was selected by Dara Wier for the Slope Editions Book Prize. She currently resides in Seattle, where she manages a gourmet deli and grades composition papers online.
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An announcement from David Abel:
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