Events, Spring 2010

All events are free and open to the public

For more information on poetry readings, contact Nicole Wilson, Assistant Programs Director, (312) 369-8819, nwilson@colum.edu

4 Feb: Rae Armantrout
17 Feb: Janet Holmes & Jenny Mueller
3 Mar: Alan Michael Parker & Matthew Shindell
1 Apr: Citywide Undergrad Poetry Festival
14 Apr: Ed Roberson
29 Apr: Columbia Poetry Review Reading & Release Party

   Rae Armantrout
Presented by the Poetry Foundation
Thursday, February 4, 6:00p.m.
Film Row Cinema
1104 South Wabash, 8th Floor

RAE ARMANTROUT is a professor of writing in the literature department at the University of California at San Diego. Armantrout is the author of ten books of poetry, including Versed (Wesleyan 2009), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; Next Life (Wesleyan 2007), which was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the best poetry books of 2007; Up to Speed (Wesleyan 2003), also selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the best poetry books of the year in 2003; and Veil: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan, 2001), which was a finalist in the Poetry category for the 2002 PEN Center USA Literary Awards. She has been published in many anthologies, including The Oxford Book of American Poetry and Scribner’s Best American Poetry of 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2007, and 2008, in such magazines as Harpers, The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Chicago Review, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. She has also received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation (2008), the Fund for Poetry (1999 and 1994) and the California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship (1989). Her collected prose was published in 2007. (photo credit Nancy Wolfing)

   Janet Holmes & Jenny Mueller
Wednesday, February 17, 5:30p.m.
Hokin Hall
623 South Wabash, Room 109

JANET HOLMES is author of five books of poetry, most recently THE MS OF MY KIN (Shearsman, 2009) and F2F (U Notre Dame, 2006). She is a founding faculty member of the MFA in Creative Writing at Boise State University, where she also edits Ahsahta Press, an all-poetry publisher.

JENNY MUELLER’s first book of poems is Bonneville, published by Elixir Press in 2007. A graduate of the University of Chicago, University of Utah, and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, she currently lives in St. Louis and teaches at McKendree University, where she is an associate professor of English.

   Alan Michael Parker & Matthew Shindell
Wednesday, March 3, 5:30 p.m.
Hokin Hall
623 South Wabash, Room 109

ALAN MICHAEL PARKER is the author of five collections of poems, including Elephants & Butterflies, a novel, Cry Uncle, and the editor or co-editor of three scholarly volumes. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker and Paris Review, among other magazines; his prose appears in journals including The Believer, and The New York Times Book Review; for the past fifteen years, his book reviews have appeared regularly in The New Yorker. The recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a Pushcart Prize and the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America (for a poem on a humanitarian theme), he holds degrees from Washington University and Columbia University. He has taught at Davidson College since 1998, where he is Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing; he is also a Core Faculty member in the Queens University low-residency M.F.A. program. ( photo credit: "AMP," by Eli Parker (spray paint on paper, 2008) )

MATTHEW SHINDELL’s first full-length book of poems, In Another Castle, was a finalist for the 2008 Tupelo Press First Book Award. He is the author of the Poetry Postcard Project and a limited edition chapbook, Were something to happen it would be both funny and interesting (University of Iowa Type Kitchen, 2001). His poems have appeared in numerous journals including American Letters and Commentary, The American Poetry Review, Black Warrior Review, FENCE, and Jubilat, and in the anthologies Digerati: 20 Contemporary Poets in the Virtual World (Three Candles Press, 2006) and The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel (No Tell Books, 2006). He lives and writes in La Jolla, California where he is currently in the dissertation stage of a Ph.D. in the history of science at the University of California, San Diego.

   11th Annual Columbia College Chicago Citywide Undergraduate Poetry Festival
Sponsored by the English Department of Columbia College Chicago
Ferguson Hall
600 South Michigan, 1st Floor
Thursday, April 1
5:30 p.m.

Featuring readers from:

Columbia College Chicago
Chicago State University
DePaul University
Loyola University
North Central College
Northeastern Illinois University
Northwestern University
Roosevelt University
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
University of Chicago
University of Illinois-Chicago

   Elma Stuckey Memorial Reading
Ed Roberson
Wednesday, April 14, 5:30 p.m.
Hokin Hall
623 South Wabash, Room 109

ED ROBERSON (b.1939 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is author of eight books of poetry.
His most recent book, The New Wing of the Labyrinth was published by Singing Horse Press in 2009. City Eclogue, was published spring 2006, Number 23 in the Atelos series. His collection, Voices Cast Out to Talk Us In, was a winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize; his book Atmosphere Conditions was a winner of the National Poetry Series and was nominated for the Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Award. He is a recipient of the Lila Wallace Writers’ Award and the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award. His next book, To See the Earth Before the End of the World, is due out from Wesleyan University Press in the fall of 2010. He is currently Artist in Residence at Northwestern University teaching in the English Department, Creative Writing Program.

   Columbia Poetry Review no. 23 Release Party & Poetry Reading
Thursday, April 29, 5:30 p.m.
Ferguson Hall
600 South Michigan, 1st Floor

Headlined by poet Zachary Schomburg, contributors to the 23rd issue of Columbia Poetry Review, the English Department’s student-edited, nationally distributed poetry magazine, read their work.

Zachary Schomburg is the author of The Man Suit (Black Ocean 2007), Scary, No Scary (Black Ocean 2009) and several small press chapbooks including three collaborations with Emily Kendal Frey: OK Goodnight (Future Tense 2010), Feelings Using Wolves (Small Fires Press 2010), and Team Sad (Cinematheque Press 2010). His translations of Andrei Sen-Senkov have been published in The Agricultural Reader, Circumference, Harp & Altar, Mantis, Aufgabe, and others. He co-edits Octopus Books and Octopus Magazine. He lives in Portland where he teaches at Portland Community College and Portland State University.