Metaphysician of Doubt

Not surprisingly, Charles Simic's first reading since being names U.S. poet laureate was a little crowded. Jessica Allen gives us a front row look at the laughs and strangeness.

Editors Out. Networking In.

For their inaugural go at publishing poetry, McSweeney's eschewed the traditional anthology structure in favor of a daisy-chain of poets, each poet selecting the next. Jessica Winter traces the social and aesthetic networks among poets and poems exhibited in the new anthology, McSweeney's Poets Picking Poets.

“Is it Lesbian enough?”

At last month’s Lambda Literary Awards, a prize ceremony for LGBT-themed books, the announcer of the prizes for erotica got overzealous about his duties. Rachel Aviv fills us in on the details.

The Movie Star vs. the Poem

On April 11, the stage at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall was packed with celebrities. Ethan Hawke, Glenn Close, Lauren Bacall, and others were all on hand to help the Academy of American Poets raise some well-deserved dough. James Marcus reports.

The Ten Jens Reading

Hot on the Heels of his Five Aarons reading, organizer Aaron Belz thought it would be fun to get ten "Jens" together in St. Louis for a reading. He gives us an insider's look.

If You Live in a Stolen Country, Expect Trouble

Debuting in Omaha, a new opera by composer Anthony Davis with a libretto by Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa isn't exactly a light fare, dealing with the poverty and displacement felt by American Indians of the 19th century. Timothy Schaffert takes in Wakonda’s Dream.

Some Poets, Their Plays, and a Moment of Real Bad Taste

Aidin Vaziri learns some lessons as he attends Small Press Traffic’s Poets Theater Jamboree. Among them, that you can't escape the war in Iraq and that sometimes it's best if poets just stick to poetry.

Clever Upstart Declares: You're All Doomed

At a reading at Open Books in Seattle, Travis Nichols listens as Ben Lerner either shows why he was nominated for a National Book Award, or why he lost.

Ice Storm Freezes Creeley Conference

Who ever thought having a conference could be so tough? Michael Kelleher looks back at how even a blizzard, government decrees, falling trees, and an absentee audience couldn't put the brakes on a conference set up to celebrate the work of Robert Creeley.

Poetry, Wartime, and Unwieldy Metaphors

Do you have to have lived through war in order to write poems about it? At a panel discussion in Chicago—featuring Brian Turner, Dunya Mikhail, Jorie Graham, Gary Snyder, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Philip Metres—Cliff Doerksen finds out.

98 poets, 118 years

With recordings going back to 1888, the boxed set Poetry on Record seems like it should amaze even the most jaded poetry fans. Will it? From Whitman and Browning to Levertov and Plath, Nick Marino lets us know what to expect.

Rejection Slip? What Rejection Slip?

At a place which bills itself as one of the oldest continually running coffee shops in the U.S., Lyn Lifshin, once dubbed the “Queen of the Small Presses,” reads and chats about rejection and acceptance. Daniel Nester reports on a reading by one of the most prolific poets ever.

Women, Gibberish, and Prom Dresses

At Manhattan's Cornelia Street Cafe, a group of women staged a series of readings of female poets including Mina Loy, Barbara Guest and Muriel Rukeyser. Our man James Marcus was there for Gertrude Stein night.

Self-Hatred Can Be Funny

At Centrum Writer's Conference in Port Townsend, Washington, the surroundings are so lush our writer finds herself in a "Lewis and Clark stupor." And that's before Lynn Emanuel starts to read. By Frances McCue.

In the Realm of Cool Eyeglasses

In a tiny art-deco theater inside of a restaurant in Seattle, John Yau and Doug Nufer read to the creme de la creme of Seattle's literary Scene. Anna Maria Hong reports back on the reading, the wine, and the clever-punning audience.

Milosz Is Watching You

At Copernicus’s alma mater in Krakow, U.S. and Polish poets get together to talk poetry and politics under Czeslaw Milosz’s watchful eye. Bradford Gray Telford reports on the new questions facing poets on both continents.

May 8, 2008 : Los Angeles, CA
Heather McHugh. Hammer Readings
McHugh (Eyeshot), editor of the most recent edition of The Best American Poetry, reads for this UCLA Museum series.

May 8-9, 2008 : Chicago, IL
Piotr Sommer. Poem Present
Sommer, who translates Frank O’Hara, John Berryman, and others into Polish, visits from Warsaw to read translations and his own work, some of which is collected in the volume Continued. He gives a public talk the following day.

May 9, 2008 : San Francisco, CA
Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Bill Berkson, and Maxine Chernoff. de Young Poetry Series
A special installation of this poetry series curated by Paul Hoover features four prominent local poets offering a “Walking Tour of the American Galleries” of the de Young Museum of Fine Art in Golden Gate Park.

May 9, 2008 : New York, NY
Christina Davis and Evie Shockley. Center for Book Arts
Jeanne Marie Beaumont hosts the Center Broadsides Reading Series, where the first 40 attendees receive a letterpress-printed broadside of a poem by readers Davis (Forth a Raven) and Shockley (a half red sea).

May 10, 2008 : New York, NY
Marie Ponsot, Marilyn Hacker, Annie Finch, and others. Bowery Poetry Club
Ponsot (Springing), Hacker (Essays on Departure), Finch (Calendars), and others read to celebrate Mother’s Day and the publication of White Ink: Poems on Mothers and Motherhood.

May 11, 2008 : Pomona, CA
Holaday Mason. dA Center for the Arts
Clinical psychologist and Beyond Baroque artist-in-residence Mason reads from her first full-length collection, Towards the Forest.

May 12, 2008 : Berkeley, CA
Charles Potts, John Oliver Simon, and Richard Krech. Moe’s Books
Potts (Nature Lovers) is the founder of the Temple School of Poetry in Walla Walla, Washington; Simon (Caminante) is Artistic Director of Poetry Inside Out, a translators-in-the-schools program; Krech’s new collection, In Chambers: The Bodhisattva of the Public Defender’s Office, takes its inspiration from his law practice. The poets read together in Berkeley for the first time in 40 years.

May 13, 2008 : New York, NY
David Lehman, Tracie Morris, and Alice Quinn. Bright Lights Big Verse: Poems of Times Square
Judges Lehman, Morris, and Quinn gather at the Times Square Information Center with the first five winners of what will be an annual contest for poems about Times Square.

May 14-18, 2008 : San Rafael and Sausalito, CA
Jane Hirshfield, Eavan Boland, Robert Bly, and others. Marin Poetry Festival
Hirshfield (After), Boland (Domestic Violence), Bly (The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door), and many others come together for five days of poetry readings at cafés, galleries, universities, and cultural centers. Funds raised benefit poetry in the schools programs.

May 15, 2008 : Seattle, WA
Jessy Randall and Rebecca Hoogs. Richard Hugo House
Poet and librarian Randall reads from her first collection, A Day in Boyland, for the Cabaret series. Hoogs (Grenade), director of Seattle Writers in the Schools, reads new work.

May 15-17 : La Conner, WA
Gloria Burgess, Lucille Clifton, Thomas Lux, and others. Skagit River Poetry Festival
Burgess (The Open Door), Lux (God Particles), Clifton (Good Woman), and dozens of others celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Skagit River Poetry project, which has promoted high literacy standards in rural school districts to over 10,000 students.

May 16, 2008 : Milwaukee, WI
Amaud Jamaul Johnson. Woodland Pattern Book Center
University of Wisconsin professor Johnson reads from his first collection, Red Summer, an exploration of the race riots that erupted around the country in 1919.

May 17, 2008 : Jackson Heights, NY
Michael Dumanis, Ishle Park, Bill Zavatsky, and many students. Jackson Heights Poetry Festival
Dumanis (My Soviet Union), Park (The Temperature of This Water), and Zavatsky (Where X Marks the Spot) read at Garden School alongside the winners of the Jackson Heights Poetry Contest, open to students in middle and high schools throughout Queens.

May 18, 2008 : Los Angeles, CA
Sarah Bein and Charles Hood. Poetry at the Ruskin
Bein, who is also a Stanford M.D., reads from her third book, Thirty-Three Hats for Julia, alongside ethnopoetics scholar and visual artist Hood (The Xopilote Cantos) for this series hosted by Red Hen Press.

May 18, 2008 : Washington, DC
Shanna Compton, Wade Fletcher, and Jennifer L. Knox. DC Arts Center
Compton (For Girls (& Others)) and Knox (Drunk By Noon) add another city to their spring Bloof tour; DC poet and community activist Fletcher reads new work.

May 18, 2008 : Oakland, CA
Robert Fitterman and Jennifer Manzano. The (New) Reading Series
Local poet Manzano reads with Fitterman, whose latest project, the Flarf-esque collection This Window Makes Me Feel, is available for free download on UbuWeb.

May 20, 2008 : New York, NY
Philip Levine and Edward Hirsch. Word for Word
Levine reads from his latest collection, Breath, for this summer series in the Bryant Park Reading room hosted by poet and Guggenheim Foundation president Hirsch (Special Orders).

May 20, 2008 : Chicago, IL
Sarah Rosenthal. Series A
Rosenthal, who is compiling a series of interviews with Bay Area poets, reads from her forthcoming collection Manhatten for this series at the Hyde Park Art Center, the oldest alternative exhibition space in Chicago.

May 21, 2008 : San Francisco, CA
August Kleinzahler. Jewish Community Center
Griffin Poetry Prize winner Kleinzahler (The Strange Hours Travelers Keep) reads and discusses his Jewish upbringing in an Italian New Jersey neighborhood for what is being billed as “An Unpredictable Evening.”

May 21, 2008 : Chicago, IL
Garin Cycholl and Abraham Smith. Danny’s Reading Series
Near South co-editor Cycholl (Nightbirds) reads with Smith (Whim Man Mammon), who has performed at the National Poetry Slam, the Taos Poetry Circus, and the South by Southwest music festival.

May 22-25, 2008 : Chicago, IL
Bruce Covey, Brandi Homan, Danielle Pafunda, and others. Pilcrow Lit Fest
Librarians, booksellers, publishers, and writers—including poets and editors Covey (Ten Pins, Ten Frames), Homan (Hard Reds), and Pafunda (My Zorba)—gather for the first year of this festival named after the typographical character for “paragraph”: ¶.

May 23, 2008 : San Francisco, CA
Jennifer Firestone and Matthew Shenoda. Small Press Traffic
Firestone (Holiday), co-editor of the new anthology Letters to Poets: Conversations About Poetics, Politics, and Community, reads with Shenoda (Somewhere Else), who teaches in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University.

May 24, 2008 : New York, NY
Suzanne Cleary, Colette Inez, and Kevin Prufer. Ear Inn Reading Series
Cleary (Trick Pear), Inez (Spinoza Doesn’t Come Here Anymore), and Prufer (National Anthem) read for this weekly series at the Ear Inn, a small bar steps from the Hudson river.

May 26, 2008 : New York, NY
Kate Colby and Jibade-Khalil Huffman. St. Mark’s Poetry Project
Huffman reads from his first book, 19 Names for Our Band, released last month; Colby reads from her second, Unbecoming Behavior, which she describes as “part autobiography, part revisionist biography of Jane Bowles.”

May 27, 2008 : New York, NY
Eamon Grennan. The Philoctetes Center
Grennan, who divides his time between Poughkeepsie and Ireland, reads from his new collection, Matter of Fact, at this center for “the multidisciplinary study of the imagination.”

May 28, 2008 : San Clemente, CA
David J. Morris and Brian Turner. Casa Romantica Reading Series
Morris (Storm on the Horizon: Khafji—The Battle that Changed the Course of the Gulf War), who writes about the war in Iraq for Salon.com and Virginia Quarterly Review, reads with Turner (Here, Bullet), who holds an MFA and served in the U.S. Army for seven years.

May 29, 2008 : Minneapolis, MN
Wendy Brown-Baez and students from El Colegio Charter School. Jugar con fuego
This bilingual celebration of Spanish-language poetry features Brown-Baez and her students, who “play with fire” as they read their own work and the poems of Pablo Neruda, Antonio Machado, and Miguel Hernandez.

May 29, 2008 : Oakland, CA
Paul Hoover and Karen Volkman. Pegasus Books Downtown Reading Series
Hoover (Edge and Fold), who has recently been translating from the German (Friedrich Hölderlin) and Vietnamese (the anthology Black Dog, Black Night), reads with Volkman, whose new book, Nomina, is a long sonnet sequence.

May 29-31, 2008 : Tucson, AZ
Marjorie Perloff, Charles Bernstein, Tracie Morris, and others. Conceptual Poetry Symposium
The University of Arizona Poetry Center hosts this symposium featuring a keynote address by Perloff (Differentials: Poetry, Poetics, Pedagogy) as well as lectures, panels, and roundtable discussions with Bernstein (Girly Man), Morris (intermission), Christian Bök, Kenneth Goldsmith, Susan Howe, and others.

May 30-31, 2008 : San Francisco, CA
Aggression: A Conference on Contemporary Poetics and Political Antagonism
The three panels of this conference organized by Chris Chen, Cynthia Sailers, and Stephanie Young focus on technologically mediated public spaces, Bay Area experimental poetry communities and their clashes during the 1970s and 80s, and race and the avant-garde.

May 31, 2008 : Houston, TX
Guadalupe M. Méndez and Julietta Parra Ducote. Flamenco Poets Society
Artistic Director Ducote and fifth grade science teacher Méndez are accompanied by flamenco guitarist Randy Cordero as they read Latin American and Spanish poetry.

May 31, 2008 : New Bedford, MA
Caroline Knox, James Bobrick, Claudia Grace, and others. Walt Whitman’s Birthday Reading
Various New England poets and writers gather to read from Leaves of Grass, Democratic Vistas, and Whitman’s letters at Seaman’s Bethel, the “Whaleman’s Chapel” Melville identifies in Moby-Dick. Whitman would have been 189.

June 2, 2008 : Seattle, WA
Raymond McDaniel. Open Books
The Constant Critic book reviewer McDaniel (Saltwater Empire) reads amidst Open Books’ 9,000 poetry or poetry-related titles.