English Department Events, Spring 2009

All events are free and open to the public

For more information on poetry readings, contact Becca Klaver, Assistant Programs Director, (312) 369-8819, rklaver@colum.edu

29 Jan: WORD 4 Opening Reception
12 Feb: Court Green 6 & Fence Books Release Party
13 Feb: AWP English Department Reception
25 Feb: Brandi Homan & James Shea
18 Mar: Kimiko Hahn & Tracie Morris
2 Apr:   Citywide Undergraduate Poetry Festival
9 Apr:   Poets in Hollywood: Robert Polito & David Trinidad in Conversation
22 Apr: Ron Padgett & Michael Burkard
30 Apr: Columbia Poetry Review no. 22 Release Party

WORD 4 Opening Reception
Thursday, January 29, 2009, 5:00-7:00 p.m.
Exhibit Runs January 19-Feburary 27, 2009
Hokin Gallery, 623 S. Wabash Ave., 1st floor

“Word 4: Type + Image” is the fifth annual D.E.P.S. exhibition celebrating the union of art and the written word. The exhibit features work from Columbia College Chicago’s Fine Art, Graphic Design, Illustration and Poetry students, along with other Columbia College students who use text as an integral component of their work. A portion of the exhibition contains typeset poetry that was written by students from Columbia College’s Creative Writing—Poetry program and designed by students in Dawn Peccatiello’s Intermediate Typography class. Poetry curated by Becca Klaver, Assistant Programs Director, Poetry and Literature. Gallery Hours: Monday through Thursday 9-7, Friday 9–5. Contact: Justin Witte, Exhibition Coordinator, 312.369.8177, jwitte[at]colum[dot]edu.

Court Green & Fence Books Release Party & Poetry Reading
Thursday, February 12, 2009, 6:30 p.m.
Film Row Cinema, 1104 South Wabash Avenue, 8th floor

Court Green 6 (Letters Dossier) and Fence Books celebrate their publication releases with a reading and reception in conjunction with the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference. Contributors will read selections from Court Green and Fence Books.  Readers include William Olsen, Sharon Dolin, Julie Carr, Carrie Etter, Charles Jensen, Elizabeth Robinson, Sasha Steensen, James Shea, Brian Young, and Rodrigo Toscano, among others. A reception follows the readings.

AWP English Department Reception
Friday, February 13, 2009, 7:00-8:15 p.m.
Hilton Chicago, 720 South Michigan Avenue
Joliet Room, 3rd floor

Brandi Homan & James Shea
Wednesday, February 25, 2009, 5:30 p.m.
Hokin Auditorium, 623 S. Wabash Ave., Room 109

JAMES SHEA is the author of Star in the Eye, selected by Nick Flynn as the winner of the 2008 Fence Modern Poets Series. His poems have appeared in various journals, including American Letters and Commentary, Boston Review, Mrs. Maybe, and Verse. He currently teaches at Columbia College Chicago and DePaul University.

BRANDI HOMAN is the author of Hard Reds from Shearsman Books and the chapbook Two Kinds of Arson from dancing girl press. She received her MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago and her MA from the University of Illinois at Chicago. The recipient of a Ragdale Foundation residency, Brandi is Editor-in-Chief of Switchback Books, a feminist press specializing in poetry by women. She writes professionally in advertising and is originally from Marshalltown, Iowa. 

Kimiko Hahn & Tracie Morris
Wednesday, March 18, 2009, 5:30 p.m.
Sherwood Conservatory Recital Hall, 1312 South Michigan Avenue

KIMIKO HAHN is the author of seven collections of poetry, including The Unbearable Heart which received an American Book Award; Earshot, a Theodore Roethke Memorial Prize and an Association of Asian American Studies Award; and most recently, The Narrow Road to the Interior (W.W. Norton, 2006). The latter—whose title is stolen from the haiku master, Basho—consists of work inspired by Japanese classical forms.  She has also written for film; the latest, Everywhere At Once, was narrated by Jeanne Moreau and presented at The Cannes and Tribeca Film Festivals.  Hahn has taught in the MFA Programs at N.Y.U. and the University of Houston and is currently a Distinguished Professor in the English Department and MFA Program at Queens College, The City University of New York.  She is working on a new collection, Toxic Flora, poems prompted by science articles.

TRACIE MORRIS is an interdisciplinary poet who has worked extensively as a sound poet, bandleader and multimedia performer. Her sound installations have been presented at the Whitney Biennial and the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning. Tracie is the recipient of numerous awards for poetry and performance and has contributed to, and been written about in, several anthologies of literary criticism. She holds an MFA from Hunter College and a PhD from New York University.

10th Annual Citywide Undergraduate Poetry Festival
Thursday, April 2, 2009, 5:30 p.m.
Conaway Center, 1104 South Wabash, 1st Floor

The Columbia College Chicago Citywide Undergraduate Poetry Festival brings together 12 poets from Chicago-area colleges and universities to read their work. This year's schools include Columbia College Chicago, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago State University, DePaul University, Loyola University, National-Louis University, North Central College, Northeastern Illinois University, Northwestern University, Roosevelt University, University of Illinois-Chicago, and University of Chicago. A reception follows the reading. 

POETS IN HOLLYWOOD: Robert Polito & David Trinidad in Conversation
Thursday, April 9, 2009, 1:00 p.m.
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Ave., 8th Floor
Presented in conjunction with BOMB magazine's BOMBLive series.

ROBERT POLITO’s most recent books are the poetry collection Hollywood & God and The Complete Film Writings of Manny Farber (forthcoming August 2009). His other books include Doubles, A Reader’s Guide to James Merrill’s The Changing Light at Sandover, and Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson, which received the National Book Critics Circle award in biography. He is the founder and Director of the New School Graduate Writing Program, and is completing a new book, Detours: Seven Noir Lives.

DAVID TRINIDAD’s most recent book, The Late Show, was published by Turtle Point Press in 2007. With Jeffery Conway and Lynn Crosbie, he co-wrote Phoebe 2002: An Essay in Verse (Turtle Point, 2003), a mock-epic based on the 1950 film All About Eve. His other books include Answer Song (High Risk Books, 1994), Hand Over Heart: Poems 1981-1988 (Amethyst Press, 1991), Pavane (Sherwood Press, 1981), and Plasticville (Turtle Point, 2000), a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize of the Academy of American Poets. With Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton, he edited Saints of Hysteria: A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry (Soft Skull Press, 2007). Trinidad teaches poetry at Columbia College Chicago, where he co-edits the journal Court Green.

Elma Stuckey Memorial Reading
Ron Padgett & Michael Burkard
Wednesday, April 22, 2009, 5:30 p.m.Film Row Cinema, 1104 South Wabash Avenue, 8th floor

RON PADGETT’s books include How to Be Perfect (poems), You Never Know (poems), If I Were You (collaborative works), and two memoirs, Oklahoma Tough: My Father, King of the Tulsa Bootleggers and Joe: A Memoir of Joe Brainard. Padgett is also the editor of The Handbook of Poetic Forms as well as the translator of Blaise Cendrars’ Complete Poems, Guillaume Apollinaire’s Poet Assassinated, and (with Bill Zavatsky) Valery Larbaud’s Poems of A. O. Barnabooth. He has collaborated with artists such as Jim Dine, Alex Katz, George Schneeman, and Joe Brainard. Padgett has received Fulbright, NEA, Guggenheim, and Civitella Ranieri grants and fellowships, and was named Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government. In 2008 he was elected Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Ron Padgett lives in New York City. For more information, go to www.ronpadgett.com.

MICHAEL BURKARD’S books include Envelope of Night: Selected and Uncollected Poems 1966-1990 (Nightboat Books), Unsleeping (Sarabande Books), Pennsylvania Collection Agency (New Issues Press), Entire Dilemma (Sarabande Books) and My Secret Boat: a notebook of prose and poems (W. W. Norton). His poems have appeared in many journals, including The American Poetry Review, Luna, Paris Review, Court Green, and Black Clock.  He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Syracuse University, and in the Writing Seminars for Bennington College.

Columbia Poetry Review no. 22 Release Party & Poetry Reading
Thursday, April 30, 2009, 5:30 p.m.
Sherwood Conservatory Recital Hall, 1312 South Michigan Avenue

Contributors to this year’s issue of Columbia Poetry Review, now in its 22nd year as the English Department’s student-edited, nationally distributed poetry magazine, read their work.  A reception follows.