I’m excited that Rae Armantrout is coming to LA on May 12th not only to read and talk to my undergraduate class in “American Poetry Since 1945” but also to give a reading and Q & A to all who are interested just minutes after the class. A real trooper!
If you are interested to coming to this and need help negotiating the wilds of UCLA parking or need information about public transportation and how to get to Humanities 193, please let me know!
One of my favorite poets in the Auden tradition, the “Irish” poet Paul Muldoon. I haven’t been up on his work for a long time but I’m sure he’s up to something clever and interesting.
Beckman Institute Auditorium
A writer of dazzling invention and resourceful wit, Paul Muldoon has been called by The Times Literary Supplement “the most significant English-language poet born since the Second World War.”
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the European Prize for Poetry, and the Griffin International Prize for Excellence in Poetry, he is currently poetry editor of the New Yorker and Howard G. B. Clark ’21 Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Creative Writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.
This event is free and open to the public.
Beckman Institute Auditorium is located on Michigan Avenue south of Del Mar Boulevard.
I wrote a little “newsletter” for UCLA concerning M/ELT related events and announcements. Thought I’d share it here:
1. Jeremy Schmidt recently won one of Boston Review’s “Discovery Poetry Prizes” for which he will receive a cash prize, publication in the Boston Review and a reading at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
http://bostonreview.net/blog/daniel-evans-pritchard-2014-discovery-poetry-prize-winners-announced
2. Tara Fickle, Jacquelyn Ardam and myself have essays in the new “Poetry Games” issue of Comparative Literature Review, a UCLA hat trick!
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/comparative_literature_studies/toc/cls.51.1.html
3. As some of you know, Tara Fickle was recently hired by the University of Oregon to teach Asian American Literature and Digital Humanities but even more exciting (to me, because I just discovered it) she has a really nice website! We’ll certainly miss her!
http://ficklet.wordpress.com/
4. I’m honored to have been asked to give the keynote lecture for the UCSB Conference “Composition: Making Meaning through Design.” May 15-16 (my talk is at 1:45 on the 15th). It’s hosted by their History of Books & Material Texts group. My talk is titled “Establishing and Dispelling Ground in Print and Screen Design” and I’m eager to find out what I mean by that. I’ve attached the draft brochure.
http://www.ihc.ucsb.edu/meaning-through-design/
5. I’ll also be giving a talk on my research and art at the Digital Humanities Working Group on May 28th at 4pm in the YRL Research Commons. The talk will center around my book project “Comedies of Separation” which outlines a theory of text/algorithm interaction as it relates to literature, politics and philosophy.
http://www.digitalhumanities.ucla.edu/about/news.html
6. In addition to UCLA students Lisa Mendelman and Renee Hudson, M/ELT has two outside scholars coming in to talk about their research, Arne DeBoever of CalArts regarding “Creatures of Panic: On Robert Harris’ The Fear Index,” and Jessica Lewis Luck of CSUSB on “Experimental Sound Poetry and the Catchiness of the Avant-Garde.” Here’s the detailed schedule. Please write to me if you’d like to receive the papers.
http://www.arras.net/wordpress-melt/category/melt-schedule/
7. And as a reminder, M/ELT is sponsoring a reading by poet and Pulitzer-winner Rae Armantrout on May 12th, 4pm, in Humanities 193. The reading will be followed by a Q&A.
http://www.arras.net/fscIII/?p=2407
8. Not to get all me on you again, but for those of you interested in my research (since I’m sure it’s a bit mystifying) a few other essays of mine have been published recently and are available online:
“Against Desire: Excess, Disgust and the Sign in Electronic Literature”
http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/disgust
“Conceptual Writing: The L.A. Brand”
http://poeticresearch.tumblr.com/post/75590878009/area-sneaks-sheets-1-2014-download-purchase
9. Other M/ELT-related student publications include Jacquelyn Ardam’s essay “”Too Old for Children and Too Young for Grown-ups”: Gertrude Stein’s To Do: A Book of Alphabets and Birthdays” in Modernism/modernity (this was the first essay we workshopped, actually):
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modernism-modernity/summary/v018/18.3.ardam.html
Jay Jin’s “The Physics of Voice in Joyce’s ‘Ithaca’” appeared last year in the Joyce Studies Annual:
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/joyce_studies_annual/summary/v2013/2013.jin.html
Tara Fickle’s essay on Amy Tan is forthcoming in MELUS (39.3 Fall 2014). This obviously isn’t online yet but here’s an abstract:
http://ficklet.wordpress.com/publications/
10. And lastly, Jacquelyn Ardam, Sarah Nance, Jay Jin and Jeremy Schmidt will be partaking in a roundtable at this year’s Southland Conference called “Reading Matters” at UCLA on May 29-30. This isn’t a M/ELT panel but I think “melt’ and “material” will appear in the title once they choose one.
http://www.english.ucla.edu/news-a-events-/southland
No real information on the Poetic Research Bureau website (and I’m too busy to collect it myself) but this looks like a great reading and meeting of the coasts (and countries). These three are all old friends of mine so this will be especially fun, kind of a reunion of “post-Language” poets from the 90s.
Jeff Derksen was early associated with the Kootenay School in Vancouver and is now an achieved scholar of globalization (and poetics) up at Simon Fraser with several great books of poems under his belt. Rachel Levitsky is also very accomplished and the editor of the Belladonna publishing series. And of course David Buuck is just a nut who often attacks podiums when performing – most of you in L.A. who regularly attend poetry readings have probably seen him standing on his head.
I’m being flip, more real information later…
I’ve been wanting for years to see a play by Alice Tuan and now she has a world premiere right here in LA!
May 15 – June 8
By Alice Tuan
Directed by Laurel Ollstein
Produced by The Los Angeles Theatre Center
In a play that could only be set in L.A., with a plot that feels ripped out of recent Hollywood headlines, Kim and Mark meet as the result of an ill-fated collision on the freeway (of course). A string of sex, excess, love triangles and Zankou Chicken soon follows in Alice Tuan’s Hit. It’s a psychosexual romp, originally commissioned by the Public Theater, from the CalArts educator and playwright behind Ajax (por nobody), Last of the Suns and Coastline.
Previews May 15, 16 | Opens May 17
Thursday – Saturday 8pm | Sunday 3pm
General Admission | $40
Students, Seniors, Veterans, Groups 10+ | $20
$10 Thursdays (Limited number available)
Previews | $20
LATC Members | $20
This promises to be really exciting, the entirety of Susan Simpson’s “Concrete Folk Variations” trilogy done at one go!
When a prominent society maven and philanthropist who secretly slums at lesbian dives is murdered, L.A.P.D. beat cop, Loretta Salt, turns reluctant investigator and steps into an infested swamp of corruption, brutality and subterfuge.
A soulful, gripping noir, Concrete Folk Variations is told through Simpson’s intricately crafted puppets, projections and a minimalist mid-century Los Angles cityscape. This cultural excavation of the moment just before the rise of the modern gay movement unearths secret codes, clandestine homosexual societies, flamboyant transgressions and soul crushing silence. Concrete Folk Variations is a hypnotic tale of the formidable times.
Performed by
Dan Rae Wilson, Moira MacDonald, Zachary Schwartz, Jonathon Williams
Voices by
Hilario Saavedra, Mark Simon, Kendra Ware, Anne Yatco
Live Musical Score: Eric Potter
Video Design: Dustin Neiderman
MAY 2-11
8pm Thursday-Sunday, 3pm Saturday and Sunday
Tickets:
$18 General Admission
$15 Members/Students/Seniors
Seating is Limited; Advance Reservations Suggested.
PURCHASE TICKETS
*** For those familiar with Concrete Folk from past iterations you might like to know that this performance will contain all three episodes collected into one evening.****
Read reviews and see pictures from from past Concrete Folk Productions
HERE
A Fusion of Senses: Poetry, Music, Dance and Visual Arts in Paris (1880-1914)
Co-presented with the UCLA Department of French and Francophone Studies and the UCLA Department of Music
Organized by Sonnets & Sonatas, a UCLA series of lectures, this evening of readings, screenings, and musical performances is meant to evoke a period of time when artists, musicians, and poets were merging different art forms. This program includes the works of Debussy, Saint-Saëns, Satie, and Boulanger; popular waltzes by Chaminade or Jaëll; and songs of Paris cabarets of the Belle Époque. Lecture by Laure Murat, professor in the UCLA Department of French and Francophone Studies. Musical direction by Guillaume Sutre, professor of violin and head of chamber music in the UCLA Department of Music.
In conjunction with Tea and Morphine: Women in Paris, 1880 to 1914.
Public Programs are free. Tickets for assigned seating in the Billy Wilder Theater are required and available at the Box Office one hour before each program. Early arrival is recommended. Tickets are available one per person on a first come, first served basis.
As a benefit for their support, members enjoy priority ticketing and seat selection, subject to availability.
Parking is available under the museum for a flat fee of $3 after 6PM.
Event Detail – Hammer Museum.
