35th Annual Reading Series

All Reading Series Events held in the SAIC Ballroom, 112 S. Michigan, Chicago

Fall 2007 Reading Series

A. Van Jordan and Tyehimba Jess
Wednesday October 17, 2007, 6:30 pm $10, $8 for students, free for members and SAIC students, faculty and staff

A. Van Jordan’s first book, Rise, won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award and was a selection of the Academy of American Poets book club. He is an assistant professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Tyehimba Jess’ first book, leadbelly, was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. Jess received a 2006 Whiting Award, a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2004, and was a 2004-5 Winter Fellow at Provincetown’s Fine Arts Work Center. He won an Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship in Poetry for 2000 - 2001, and the 2001 Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award. He is an Assistant Professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Fightin' Words: The Literature of War
Wednesday, November 7, 2007, 6:30 pm $10, $8 for students, free for members and SAIC students, faculty and staff

Brian Turner
Bruce Weigl

The Poetry Center of Chicago presents an evening of work dealing with war’s impact on those who serve. Brian Turner and Bruce Weigl share stories inspired by their own military experience.

Brian Turner is a soldier-poet whose debut book of poems, Here, Bullet, won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award and the New York Times “Editor's Choice” selection. Turner served seven years in the US Army, as an infantry team leader in Iraq and in Bosnia-Herzegovina with the 10th Mountain Division. Turner's poetry has been published in Poetry Daily, The Georgia Review, and in the Voices in Wartime Anthology published in conjunction with the feature-length documentary film of the same name.

Bruce Weigl is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, and the best-selling memoir The Circle of Hanh. He has been awarded many honors, including the Paterson Poetry Prize, Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Yaddo Foundation, two Pushcart Prizes, and the Poet’s Prize from the Academy of American Poets.

Hebrew Poetry From Muslim and Christian Spain
Presented In partnership with Nextbook

Tuesday, November 13, 2007, 6:30 pm $8, $6 for students and under 25. For more information visit www.nextbook.org. Order tickets online at: http://nextbook.org/localprograms/eventdetail.html?id=222&market=Chicago

Peter Cole

In his monumental new book, The Dream of a Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain 950-1492, internationally acclaimed poet and translator Peter Cole provides a window into one of the great periods in world literature. This collection of 400 poems shows how Jewish poets mixed their own traditions with those of their Arabic-speaking neighbors to create something entirely new. Peter Cole is the author of two collections of poetry, Rift and Hymns & Qualms. Winner of the PEN-America Translation Award, he has translated poems from both Hebrew and Arabic, including the work of Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Taha Muhammad Ali, and Aharon Shabtai. He lives in Jerusalem, where he coedits Ibis Editions.

Lip Reading Series
The Spot, 4437 N. Broadway, 8 pm $5
Join host Emily Rose as she presents the best emerging poets and spoken word performers from across the city and the country. The venue features an open mic, where both emerging poets and seasoned artists get to strut their stuff, followed by two spotlight features.

September 6: Scott Woldman and Elizabeth Harper
October 4: Susan Karp and Douglas Goetsch
November 1: Ian Belknap and Nick Fox
December 6: Larry O. Dean and Cassie Sparkman

Spring 2008 Reading Series

No Love For Love
The Poetry Center of Chicago’s 2nd Annual Anti-Valentine’s Day Show Monday, February 11, 2008, 8 pm
The Apollo Theater, 2540 N. Lincoln Ave

$20; VIP seating $50. Tickets are available by calling The Apollo box office at 773 935-6100, by calling Ticketmaster at 312 559-1212 or by logging on to www.ticketmaster.com. All proceeds benefit The Poetry Center of Chicago.

Author and syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage headlines a cast of talented local writers, poets and musicians, discussing love or their lack of it.

 
Dan Savage

Dan Savage has been writing Savage Love, an internationally syndicated sex advice column, for more than ten years. He is the editor of the Seattle alt-weekly, The Stranger, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Salon, Travel and Leisure, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He has been featured on CNN, Politically Incorrect, ABC News, The FOX News Channel, NPR's Fresh Air, and is a regular contributor to NPR's This American Life.

Savage is also the author of four books: Savage Love, a collection of his advice columns; The Kid: What Happened When My Boyfriend and I Decided to Get Pregnant, an award-winning memoir about adoption; Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America; and The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage and My Family. He has appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, The Colbert Report, ABC's 20/20, MTV, VH1, and other television and cable programs.

Luis Rodriguez
Wednesday, March 12, 2008, 6:30 pm
SAIC Ballroom, 112 S. Michigan Avenue
$10, $8 for students, free for members and SAIC students, faculty and staff

Luis Rodriguez

Rodriguez is the author of several collections of poetry, including Poems Across the Pavement, The ConcreteRiver, Trochemoche and My Nature is Hunger. His poetry has won a Poetry Center Book Award, a PEN/Josephine Miles Literary Award, and ForeWord magazine’s Silver Book Award, among others. His work, Always Running, a memoir of his time with East LA’s street gangs, earned a Carl Sandburg Literary Award and was designated a New York Times Notable Book. Rodriguez is also the author of Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times, a short story collection, The Republic of East LA : Stories and a  novel, Music of the Mill. He is the founder of Tia Chucha Press.

Small Press Showcase
Sponsored by The Poetry Center of Chicago
Friday, March 28, 2008, 7-10 pm
SAIC Ballroom, 112 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago
Admission is free, though donations are welcome.

The evening will include featured readings by participating press authors as well as a book fair at which press titles will be available to purchase and press representatives will be present to answer questions and discuss their works.

Participating Presses:

Answer Tag Home Press
Cracked Slab Books
Dancing Girl Press
Featherproof Books
Fractal Edge Press
March Abrazo Press
Puddin' Head Press
Switchback Books

A full line-up of the night's readings will be available soon.

To celebrate the publication of
Contemporary Russian Poetry: An Anthology
A bilingual reading
Tuesday, April 1, 6 pm.  Free admission
Fullerton Hall.  Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue

Evgeny Bunimovich
Elena Fanailova
Yuli Gugolev

Introduced by Christian Wiman
Translations read by distinguished American poets

Co-sponsored by the Art Institute of Chicago,
Dalkey Archive Press, National Endowment for the Arts,
The Poetry Center of Chicago, and the Poetry Foundation.

Mary Oliver
Wednesday, April 2, 6:30 pm
Rubloff Auditorium, 280 S. Columbus Dr.
$10, $8 for students, free for members and SAIC students, faculty and staff
Presented in partnership with The Poetry Foundation

Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is the author of many books of poetry, including What Do We Know, Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays, Why I Wake Early, Blue Iris: Poems and Essays,  New and Selected Poems, Volume Two. Her chapbooks and special editions include The Night Traveler, Sleeping in the Forest, and Provincetown. Mary Oliver has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize (for American Primitive), the National Book Award for Poetry (for New and Selected Poems), the Lannan Foundation Literary Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Patricia Smith
Wednesday, April 23, 2008, 6:30 pm
SAIC Ballroom, 112 S. Michigan Avenue
$10, $8 for students, free for members and SAIC students, faculty and staff

Patricia Smith

Chicago native Patricia Smith is the author of four books of poetry, including Teahouse of the Almighty, a 2005 National Poetry Series selection, winner of the 2007 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and the 2007 Paterson Poetry Prize. Teahouse was also voted the Best Poetry Book of 2006 by About.com. Blood Dazzler, a book of poems chronicling the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, will be published by Coffee House Press in 2008. Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, TriQuarterly and many other journals. She is also the author of the groundbreaking history Africans in America and the children’s book Janna and the Kings, winner of a Lee & Low Books New Voices Award. In addition, she is a Pushcart Prize winner, a Cave Canem faculty member and a four-time individual champion of the National Poetry Slam. In 2006, during a ceremony at the Gwendolyn Brooks Center of Chicago State University, she was voted into the National Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent.

Poems of Provocation & Witness
The Poetry Center in partnership with Split This Rock Poetry Festival
Festival dates: March 20th-23rd, 2008

Poets have long played a central role in movements for social change. Today, poetry that gives voice to the voiceless, names the unnamable, and speaks directly from the individual and collective conscience is more important than ever. This Washington, D.C. festival will explore and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for change: reaching across differences, considering personal and social responsibility, asserting the centrality of the right to free speech, and much more.

Call for film and video
Deadline: postmarked by January 30th, 2008
Entry fee: $15.00
Notification by February 15th, 2008

Film & Video Submissions:
We are looking for artistic, experimental, and challenging film/video interpretations of poetry that explore critical social issues. Selected work will be screened during the Split This Rock Poetry Festival film program.

For entry form and full guidelines go to http://www.poetrycenter.org/calls/Split_This_Rock-GUIDELINES.pdf

For more information about the Split This Rock Poetry Festival visit www.SplitThisRock.org

Sponsored Events

Powell’s North Reading Series
Powell’s Bookstore
2850 N. Lincoln Avenue, 7 pm
For more information, contact 773 248-1444 or log on to www.powellsnorth.blogspot.com

The Poetry Center of Chicago and Uptown Writers Space present
Writing Workshop on Voice & Place with Douglas Goetsch

Dates: Sat. & Sun., Oct. 6-7
Time: 10:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. (12 - 1:30 lunch break)
Fee: $175/ $150 if you register before September 15th

Voice and place are royal gateways to power and authenticity in writing. In this master level workshop we will look at models of how classic and contemporary writers ply these elements, and we will also be generating new writing. We will consider where participants feel "stuck," along with techniques for dealing with various quagmires. This workshop, taught by an award winning poet, essayist and teacher, is equally beneficial for writers of prose and poetry.

Class will be held at the Uptown Writers Space
4802 N. Broadway Suite 200
Chicago, IL 60640

For Reservations and Information
Call 773-275-1000
www.uptownwritersspace.com

Douglas Goetsch's  books of poetry include Nobody's Hell (Hanging Loose Press, 1999), The Job of Being Everybody (Cleveland State, 2004), winner of the CSU Poetry Center Open Competition, and three chapbooks. He is the recipient of the Aldrich Award, the Paumanok Prize, the Permafrost Prize, awards from Prairie Schooner, The American Journal of Poetry, The Chautauqua Literary Journal, two fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and numerous Pushcart Prize nominations. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Iowa Review, Ploughshares, ONTHEBUS, The Threepenny Review, The New England Review,  online at PoetryDaily  and Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac, on the air at NPR, and in many anthologies.

He grew up in Northport, Long Island, was educated at Wesleyan University and New York University, and resides in New York City. He has been on the writing faculty at The Frost Place, The Dodge Poetry Festival, The Iowa Summer Writing Festival, the Winter Poetry and Prose Getaway, and numerous other conferences and university programs. For 20 years he's been a New York City public school teacher, currently working with incarcerated children. He is founding editor of Jane Street Press.