January 31st, 2011 / 12:34 pm
 Events

Raúl Zurita @ AWP

It’s hard to keep track of anything if you’re going to AWP, but here’s one I’m making sure not to miss: Raúl Zurita reading and in conversation Friday at Noon in support of his new book from Action Books, Songs for His Disappeared Love. From Johannes: “This is like getting Neruda to the fucking AWP. This guy spent 6 weeks in a shed being tortured following the Pinochet coup.” More info and locations here.

While you’re at it, come by and say hello as a bunch of us from HTMLGiant will be at a monster table chillin.

What other events are worth seeing?

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23 Comments

  1. January 31st, 2011 / 4:46 pm Amy McDaniel—

      I am planning to go to the National Portrait Gallery while I am there. Would anyone like to come? We could mutter quietly to each other and pretend it was an offsite reading.

      From the description of one of the current exhibits, “Americans Now”:
      Individuals represented in this show include: Chuck Close, LL Cool J, Toni Morrison Cormac McCarthy, Willie Nelson, President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and Martha Stewart.

  2. January 31st, 2011 / 5:13 pm Evan—

      the panel “Honoring Robert Coover” looks good, featuring panelists Maya Sonenberg, Robert Coover, Kate Bernheimer, Mary Caponegro, Brian Evenson, Matthew Derby. (Thurs 3:00-4:15 at Thurgood Marshall West Room, Marriott Wardman Park, Mezzanine Level.)

  3. January 31st, 2011 / 5:21 pm Kent Johnson—

      There is an account here of a meeting in Santiago that Forrest Gander and I had with the great Zurita, along with a couple photos, including an aerial shot of his massive earthwork poem in the Atacama desert:

      http://jacketmagazine.com/30/chile.html

      On Zurita, too, here is the blurb I provided for the Action Books _Song for His Disappeared Love_, translated by Dan Borzutzky. Get this book! :

      “Raúl Zurita is, with Nicanor Parra, Chile’s preeminent living poet, and his “Canto a su amor desaparecido,” here in Daniel Borzutzky’s superb translation, is a shattering cyclotron of compact epic. Written in wake of the poet’s experiences of imprisonment, torture, and underground resistance, Zurita offers, in the poem’s opening half, stuttering, heart-wrenching testimonies of political and personal loss, followed by a tour de force sequence continental in scope– a kind of Canto General “in negative,” drained of any of the consoling teleologies. It is a brave work that conjoins the major and the minor, the vatic and the humblest–and most courageous–orders of the quotidian. Giving no quarter to abstract aesthetic, it’s a poem whose traumas jolt us awake and demand we remember.”

  4. January 31st, 2011 / 5:28 pm Nat—
  5. January 31st, 2011 / 5:32 pm Daniel Bailey—

      me skeeting in jumpa lahiri’s coffee

  6. January 31st, 2011 / 5:41 pm Kent Johnson—

      Sorry, after posting the relevant blurb, I noticed there is a link to it above.

      Do check out the photo in the other link, though. As we point out there, Zurita is author of the most massively scaled poems in history–at least those we still know of. Lots of people don’t know that a big scandal erupted in Chile when Bolano’s Distant Star appeared: The fascist sky-writing pilot, Alberto Ruiz-Tagle, does with his airplane-poetry what Zurita had famously done in NYC. Bolano and Zurita didn’t exactly get along: The former was close to Trotskyism, the latter with the Communist Party, and Bolano was pissed when Zurita took a position in the post-Pinochet regime. Zurita was also a leading member of CADA, the main (and heroic) cultural front against the dictatorship. I’ve got a piece on that coming out soon. Auto-mutilation, fecal smearing, public masturbation were some of the tactics employed.

      They sort of make our current “Conceptual Poetry” look, what… a bit tame, smug, and comfortable?

  7. January 31st, 2011 / 5:49 pm Nat—

      Also at Bridge Street, Thursday night:

      6:00PM U Cal Press Duncan/Berrigan Book Part
      Location: Bridge Street Books, 2814 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
      Cost: Free
      Website: http://dcpoetry.com
      Description: Please join Bridge Street Books & The University of California Press for a publication celebration Thursday, February 3rd, 6-8 PM THE SELECTED POEMS OF TED BERRIGAN & THE H.D. BOOK BY ROBERT DUNCAN Poet & editor ANSELM BERRIGAN will present a short reading/talk on The Selected Poems. COLE SWENSEN and ROD SMITH will speak on The H.D. Book. @ Bridge Street Books, 2814 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC

  8. January 31st, 2011 / 5:52 pm Nat—

      New Directions is 75

      Since 1936, New Directions has published some of the most groundbreaking poetry of the 20th century. ND continues to introduce pivotal writers from here and abroad. To celebrate the 75th anniversary, poets Thalia Field, Forrest Gander, Susan Howe, Rosmarie Waldrop, and ND Poetry Editor Jeffrey Yang will talk about the New Directions legacy, how past New Directions poets including Duncan, Levertov, Oppen, Pound, and W.C. Williams influenced their work, and will read from their new books.

      3 PM
      Marriott Ballroom
      Marriott Wardman Park, Lobby Level

  9. January 31st, 2011 / 6:42 pm Roxane—

      That sounds so awesome. I wonder if I could get away on Saturday to do that.

  10. January 31st, 2011 / 7:39 pm Amy McDaniel—

      cool let me know if you can! i was thinking saturday.

  11. January 31st, 2011 / 7:45 pm MissFlesh—

      Ah, hell. Kent Johnson’s found this site–I’m gone. How many days before his heteronyms are duking it out? Then again, maybe I’m one of them?

  12. January 31st, 2011 / 8:49 pm Dan Brady—

      Epic Table X reading featuring (in order of appearance) Maureen Thorson, Julian T. Brolaski, Elisa Gabbert, Joe Hall, Adam Robinson, Farid Matuk, Mina Pam Dick, Mike Young, Heather Christle, Ben Mirov, Christie Ann Reynolds, Sasha Fletcher, Lily Ladewig, Andrew Gorin, Joseph Calavenna, Ben Pease, Levi Rubeck, Mathias Svalina, Lily Hoang, Anna Joy Springer, Davis Schneiderman, Matthew Timmons, John Dermot Woods, Dan Beachy-Quick, Paige Taggart, Justin Marks, Brandon Downing, Harold Abramowitz, Amina Cain, Teresa Carmody, Jen Hofer, Paul Hoover, Alta Ifland, Vanessa Place, Christine Wertheim, Zachary Schomburg, Emily Kendal Frey, Joshua Ware, John Chavez, Vyt Bakaitis, Joe Elliot, Jeffrey Jullich, Matthew Cooperman, Garth Graeper, Mary Hickman, Nathan Hauke, and Kirsten Jorgenson.

      Details at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=142823315772252

  13. January 31st, 2011 / 9:25 pm Kent Johnson—

      Miss Flesh, I only write under my legal name in comment streams. I don’t believe in Anonymous or pseudonymous posting. So not to worry!

  14. January 31st, 2011 / 9:40 pm M. Kitchell—

      “what’s a jumpa lahiri”

  15. January 31st, 2011 / 6:44 pm 15 random sentences from Raúl Zurita’s Song for his Disappeared Love | HTMLGIANT—

      […] you are at AWP, please, go hear him read. He is a wonder. Tags: AWP, Raúl Zurita blog comments powered by Disqus […]

  16. February 1st, 2011 / 3:02 am Big House—

      AWP OFF-SITE READING with NIGHTBOAT,
      FUTUREPOEM AND LITMUS PRESS

      Thursday, February 3, 2011 · 7:00-10:00pm
      LARRY’s LOUNGE
      1836 18th St NW (between N Swann St & N T St)
      Dupont Circle Stop- Red Line
      Washington, DC

      Join us for an evening of fantastic (off-site) readings!

      Litmus:
      Jeffrey Jullich
      Sawako Nakayasu
      Amy King
      Brenda Iijima

      Nightboat:
      Daniel Borzutzky
      Michael Burkard
      Dawn Lundy Martin
      Leah Stein

      Futurepoem:
      Alan Gilbert
      Noah Eli Gordon
      Camille Roy
      Ronaldo Wilson

  17. February 1st, 2011 / 3:35 am Tim Jones-Yelvington—

      I am think I am going to go that one. There’s a Queer one I want to go to that has Samuel Delaney and Eileen Myles. And one with Debra DiBlasi, Lance Olsen & Steve Tomasula abt the future or something.

  18. February 1st, 2011 / 3:37 am Tim Jones-Yelvington—

      I can’t wait to go to the ZOO READING.

  19. February 1st, 2011 / 3:40 am Tim Jones-Yelvington—
  20. February 1st, 2011 / 3:44 am Tim Jones-Yelvington—

      Does anybody know anything more abt this poetry brothel thing late night on thursday? Includes Kathleen Rooney and Ariana Reines. Just read abt it today.

  21. February 1st, 2011 / 4:17 am NLY—

      While we’re talking readings, anyone in NY should be aware of a great one coming up: a reading in honor of the centenary of Elizabeth Bishop’s birth, with about 20 poets all in all, including Ashberry and other notables.

      here’s info I snagged from poetrysociety.org:

      Tuesday, Feb 8, 7:00pm
      New York City

      ELIZABETH BISHOP AT 100

      Twenty contemporary poets read a favorite poem by Elizabeth Bishop in honor of her centenary year, framed by excerpts from the new volume of correspondence, Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker. Featuring Paul Muldoon, Alice Quinn, and Maria Tucci reading selections of letters by Elizabeth Bishop and her New Yorker editors, and the following poets reading: Elizabeth Alexander, John Ashbery, Frank Bidart, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Tina Chang, James Fenton, Jonathan Galassi, Kimiko Hahn, Richard Howard, Marie Howe, Yusef Komunyakaa, David Lehman, Robert Polito, Katha Pollitt, Marie Ponsot, Vijay Seshadri, Tom Sleigh, Mark Strand, Tracy K. Smith, and Jean Valentine.

      Co-sponsored by the Academy of American Poets; Farrar, Straus & Giroux; the National Book Foundation; Poets House; and the Unterberg Poetry Center, 92nd Street Y.

      Admission is free.

      The Great Hall, Cooper Union,
      7 East 7th Street at 3rd Avenue

  22. February 1st, 2011 / 6:30 am jesusangelgarcia—

      Have you ever been to the Peacock Room at the Freer Sackler, Amy or Roxane? If not, it’s got a vibe that’s worth feeling, I’d argue. Love the Hirshhorn, too.

  23. February 1st, 2011 / 6:32 am jesusangelgarcia—