17 December 2014

Important News about This Weekend's Events




Greetings all:
I'm very sorry to report that Thom Donovan has cancelled his visit to the Bay Area due to a family emergency. Friends and colleagues will be pleased to hear that he is totally fine; however, he's got his hands full so please hold off on emails. He'll be in touch with all of you soon.

In the meantime, while we've had to cancel Thom's two public lectures at the OMNI (see above), Friday's reading is totally still on. Further, I am pleased to announce that friend and poet Hugo Garcia Manriquez has joined the bill in Thom's stead.

See you there!

16 December 2014

Hope Eternity Seen on the Hip of a Rabbit











More Beth Murray, for those who missed this chapbook the first time around. We lost a powerful poet and a super compassionate human being.

12 December 2014

I made this tonight...


to embroider on future motorcycle jackets. That's what I want for Christmas.

11 December 2014

OMNI Holiday Party & Bazaar



I'm the kind of person who really loves a holiday bazaar, and this particular bazaar promises to be pretty great because it supports La Commune, the OMNI, and Solar Luxuriance. Here's the copy:

LA COMMUNE PRESENTS
A VERY OMNI HOLIDAY PARTY & (BIZARRE) BAZAAR + SOLAR LUXURIANCE BOOK RELEASE PARTY !

Please join La Commune Cafe & Bookstore this Saturday, December 13, from 12noon to 6pm, for an Omni holiday party & craft bazaar!  We'll have fresh-baked goods & hot cider & oh so many books, plus craft vendors to help you with those last minute gift giving needs!

We'll top off the day with a book release party for SOLAR LUXURIANCE PRESS at 7pm, with readings by Erika Staiti, Nicole Trigg, Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta, Jared Joseph, Leif Haven & M. Kitchell.

Please stop by this Saturday to say hello -- & support La Commune's Indiegogo fundraiser here: La Commune Cafe and Bookstore

See you Saturday !

10 December 2014

Micah Ballard's "Vesper Chimes"




New Micah Ballard in the mail. You'll probably have to get this one from him directly, as I can't find any order information, but that gives you a reason to say hi!

09 December 2014

Beth Murray, "Electricity, the Brush of Arctic"












I've been dwelling on this chapbook by Beth Murray, published by A+ Bend back in 2000, as an antidote to the pain produced by institutionalized violence. Murray's poetry is a response through stillness. I'll post more sections from this chapbook in the coming weeks...

08 December 2014

Anne Lesley Selcer's Poems on Beauty








Anne Lesley Selcer's from A Book of Poems on Beauty is one of the best chapbooks of the year, no question. If you haven't read it yet, take a gander at the samples above. It's really quite wonderful. You can get a physical copy from Gazing Grain Press, or you can check out the entire thing electronically here. Essential reading...

03 December 2014

Thom Donovan in the Bay Area!



In addition to his reading with Oki Sogumi and Divya Victor on Friday, 12/19 at the OMNI (4799 Shattuck Ave., Oakland), Thom will also give two talks on Saturday, 12/20. The first, a workshop on "Occult Poetics," will take place at the OMNI from 2-4 pm, followed by a conversation on Joss Whedon's oeuvre in the evening. We will screen the film Cabin in the Woods prior to a discussion about Whedon's biopolitics in relation to the state of exception and extra-legal entities. Come to everything if you can!

24 November 2014

New classes at the Public School!



Hello all:

I'm organizing two reading groups at the Public School this spring if you're interested: "Heidegger for Mystics" and a monthly meeting on Agamben's Homo Sacer cycle. Info below; hope to see you there!

Heidegger for Mystics
2nd and 4th Thursdays starting January 8th from 7-9 pm

This reading group will investigate Heidegger's esoteric and "poetic" writings about language and the event, texts composed approximately between 1936-1942. With the new translation of The Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event), a forthcoming set of new lectures on Holderlin, and the recent translation of his "personal notebook" The Event, it seems timely to dig into this very strange, beautiful and often problematic writing. A possible reading list might include the following primary texts:

Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event)
Martin Heidegger, Mindfulness
Martin Heidegger, The Event
Martin Heidegger, Elucidations of Holderlin's Poetry
Martin Heidegger, Holderlin's Hymn "The Ister"
Martin Heidegger, Holderlin's Hymns "Germania" and "The Rhine"

Secondary texts might include:

Jeffrey Powell (ed.), Heidegger and Language
Daniela Vallega-Neu, Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy, An Introduction
Richard Polt, The Emergency of Being
Krzysztof Ziarek, Language After Heidegger

I'm open to moving as fast or slow as folks would like (we can meet once or twice a month, depending on schedules and interest). One strategy would be to read The Contributions in this new translation, tackle the Holderlin lectures, and then take on Mindfulness and The Event. At our first meeting in January we can work together to devise a proper reading list and schedule.


Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer Cycle
3rd Thursday of the month starting January 15th from 7-9 pm


I was thinking about rereading Homo Sacer and State of Exception in anticipation of digging into the later Agamben texts like The Kingdom and the Glory and Opus Dei, and as a result, it seemed like a good idea to read the Homo Sacer cycle from start to finish, especially since the missing volume, The Use of Bodies, is scheduled for publication in the summer of 2015. Here's the lineup:

1.1 Homo Sacer
2.1 State of Exception
2.2 The Kingdom and The Glory
2.3 The Sacrament of Language
2.4 The Use of Bodies (I think)
2.5 Opus Dei
3.1 Remnants of Auschwitz
4.1 The Highest Poverty

I plan to read one text a month, with a single meeting for conversation, though this is totally open for debate if there's interest.

I hope to see some of you there!

22 October 2014

Manhattan Luck


I'm not sure whether or not Alice Notley's Manhattan Luck will be on hand for purchase at the conference, but I wanted to share Andrew Kenower's cover, which is absolutely stunning. I'm dying to peek inside. And I think it represents the first publication of the Hearts Desire series, right?, which is super exciting!

21 October 2014

Alette in Oakland this weekend!!



So, I'm most certainly going to miss all of this due to tenure-review deadline stuff (feeling, um, mostly dejected), but you should totally go if you have a more humane work schedule. This promises to be so good that I feel totally overwhelmed just thinking about it. Here's the schedule:


FRIDAY 10/24:


7:30pm-9:00pm: Introduction & Reading by Alice Notley

9:00pm-10:00pm: Reception


SATURDAY 10/25:

10:00am-11:30am: Panel No. 1: Maggie Nelson, Sara Larsen, Laura Moriarty, Norman Fischer.

11:45am-1:15pm: Panel No. 2: Allison Cobb, Marcella Durand**, Laura Woltag, Lauren Levin, Brenda Iijima**

1:15pm-2:15pm: Lunch

2:15pm-3:45pm: Panel No. 3: Kaplan Harris, Steve Dickison, Jeanine Webb, Jennifer Karmin, Bernadette Mayer**

4:00pm-5:30pm: Panel No. 4: Becca Klaver, Trisha Low, Cassandra Gillig, Cathy Wagner

5:30pm-6:00pm: Keynote Talk: Eileen Myles

6:00pm-8:00pm: Dinner

8:00pm-9:00pm: A performance of “Anne’s White Glove” by Alice Notley, directed by Alana Siegel

[The cast and crew include Jane Gregory, David Brazil, Kevin Killian, Cassandra Gillig, Helen Frances, Jeremy Michael Dalmas, Annie O'Hare, Elaine Kahn, Crystal Sasaki, Steve Dickison, Kit Schlüter, Paul Ebenkamp, Heidi Gustafson, Alex Cruse, and Monica Raden. The play is free.]


SUNDAY 10/26:

10:00am-11:30am: Panel No. 5: Anne Boyer**, Alana Siegel, Others TBA

11:30am-12:30pm: Lunch

12:30pm-2:00pm: Town Hall with Alice Notley



So, everything is happening at the OMNI, and the (**) means that people are participating virtually.

And you can still support the Alette In Oakland Symposium by donating through the indiegogo campaign

14 October 2014

Dawn Lundy Martin and Anne Lesley Selcer



Thursday OCT 16 
Dawn Lundy Martin and Anne Lesley Selcer
3:30 pm @ The Poetry Center
HUM 512, SFSU, free
7:00 pm @ The Green Arcade
1680 Market Street (at Gough),
San Francisco, free   

We are pleased to host two readings by Dawn Lundy Martin and Anne Lesley Selcer: in the afternoon at The Poetry Center and an evening reading --- and book party celebrating Anne Lesley Selcer's from a Book of Poems on Beauty, which was selected by Dawn Lundy Martin as the winner of the Gazing Grain Press 2014 feminist chapbook contest for poetry/hybrid manuscripts --- at The Green Arcade.

Dawn Lundy Martin, an essayist and award-winning poet, is author of A Gathering of Matter/A Matter of Gathering (University of Georgia Press 2007), winner of the Cave Canem Prize; DISCIPLINE (Nightboat Books 2011), which was selected by Fanny Howe for the Nightboat Books Poetry Prize and a finalist for both Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Lambda Literary Award; Candy, a limited edition letterpress chapbook (Albion Books 2011); The Main Cause of the Exodus (O'clock Press 2014); and The Morning Hour, selected by C.D. Wright for the 2003 Poetry Society of America's National Chapbook Fellowship. Her forthcoming collection Life in a Box is a Pretty Life will be published by Nightboat Books in 2014. She has written a libretto for a video installation opera, titled "Good Stock on the Dimension Floor," which was scheduled to be featured in the 2014 Whitney Biennial, and is collaborating with architect Mitch McEwen on Detroit Opera House, "a project which stages an opera as a house, the house and its dramas of occupancy, vacancy, demolition, and re-purposing as an opera." Martin is also a co-founder of the Black Took Collective, an experimental performance art/poetry group of three. She is Associate Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.

Anne Lesley Selcer recently served as a columnist for SFMoma's Open Space and has one book, Banlieusard, commissioned by Artspeak gallery. Writing had been anthologized in NW Edge III: the end of reality, The Physics of Context, The Feeling is Mutual: A list of our fucking demands, and most recently in It's night in San Francisco, but it's sunny in Oakland. A chapbook is forthcoming with supersuperette press, and another was published with the Dusie Kollektiv in 2011. Poems have appeared in The Clackamus Review, Dusie, Where Eagles Dare, in the artist book Aunt Maude's Scrapbook by Sydney Hermant, and are forthcoming in Fence. Writing on art has been commissioned by galleries Centre A, the Or, the Helen Pitt, and by artists Aurel Schmidt and Abass Ackhavan, and has appeared in Fillipand Doppelganger magazines. In San Francisco, she was a member of the now defunct Nonsite Collective. In Vancouver she created and curated an interdisciplinary series for poets, researchers, and artists called the Chroma Reading Series. Her from A Book of Poems on Beauty was selected by Dawn Lundy Martin as the winner of the Gazing Grain Press 2014 feminist chapbook contest for poetry/hybrid manuscripts. The work is an ongoing, research based project which has produced poems, essays and video.

11 October 2014

Updates

Sara Larsen reports, "I am reading from After Sappho at Litcrawl on Saturday, October 18th @ 6 pm. It's at the Voyager Shop, 365 Valencia Street. There will be bells, and maybe a chorus..."


David Brazil reports, "Unfortunately the planned release event for Nico Peck's book on Sunday has been cancelled. We will let you know when & if it is rescheduled."

As far as I know, pancakes are still happening on Sunday...

10 October 2014

La Commune Benefit // Nico Peck





This weekend, La Commune is making you pancakes, and then Nico Peck's first book is officially launching. I hear Steve Orth can REALLY make a pancake, and it will be exciting to see books on the shelves. Like most everyday, you should spend the day at the OMNI! 



09 October 2014

Sara Larsen's After Sappho






Have any of you seen this killer Sara Larsen chapbook, After Sappho. I'm pretty sure David Brazil made them himself during a residency at the Berkeley Art Museum? Maybe Sara has more? Anyway, I love this work, and word on the street is that there's a new Sara Larsen book on the horizon!

06 October 2014

David Grundy's "Whatever You Think the Good Home"








Rich Owens also printed this pretty incredible (very petite) chapbook for David Grundy's stateside visit. I've posted the whole poem here because it looks like it's sold out at Punch Press (and it's awesome!), and I thought to mention that I have a few extra copies in my possession if you want one. First two takers get them... 

03 October 2014

SUNDIAL








Sorry I've been away so long, dear friends! Exigencies around a new teaching position have held the lion's share of my attention hostage since summer. But there's this, printed way the hell back in July, and it's so, so good I could no longer hold my tongue; flipping through it again this past weekend, I realized how many things I've yet to share this season...

Sundial was produced by genius poet/printer/critic/human Rich Owens in Maine, (maybe as) a one-off to mark David Grundy's visit to the states. Letterpress covers on kraft paper with photocopied guts. And the lineup is pretty incredible (see above). This number features the last few lines of my Katechon 3, the rest of which appears in the Timeless, Infinite Light anthology, and will appear later (??), in full, in a slightly different form thanks to the diligent (though frankly paranoid!) work of the Vigilance Society. Sundial can be had here for super cheap, and purchase may also snag you a copy of a tiny David Grundy one-off chapbook, also produced by Owens for the visit...