Small Press Traffic

 

Events

Spring 2010

For over 35 years SPT has been at the heart of where experimentation and community intersect. This season we continue to present a multi-pronged conversation that highlights some of the concerns of our readers’ work. These conversations include: bodies, communities and empires.  Dialogues are intended to engender discussions around the themes of bodies, communities, and empires, putting each reader's writing into broader contexts and ongoing debates around poetics, politics, and practice.

Our lineup is as follows:

Jan 15: Poets Theater

Join us for a night of costumed ribaldry, artistic blasphemy, and cultural craziness, along with drinks, food and other wonders! As part the first night of SPT's annual fundraiser we will present performances, and surprises:

 

Including plays by:

 

Dodie Bellamy, "Turn on the Heat, by A.A. Fair"

(directed  by Kevin Killian)

 

Rodney Koeneke, "The Impertinents"

(directed by Lauren Shufran)

 

Stephen Boyer, "Bidgood Opening - Life on Mars" (directed by Stephen Boyer)

 

Brent Cunningham, "The Event"

(directed by Brent Cunningham)

 

Jan 22: Poets Theater

This year's Poets Theater Fest celebrates the release of the epic Kenning Anthology of Poets Theater: 1945-1985, edited by Kevin Killian and David Brazil. As part of SPT's annual fundraiser, we will be staging several works from the anthology.

Jan 24: Poets Theater

In the final installment of Poets Theater 2010, we will present the first ever off-site event, with multiple simultaneous performaces staged in and around the CCA campus. Activities begin at the beautiful Grad Writing Studio.

ALL POETS THEATER EVENTS ARE $20 admission for this annual fundraiser; a three event pass is $40.

 

 Jan 30: Brenda Coultas and Cedar Sigo on communities

 

Brenda Coultas is the author of The Marvelous Bones of Time and A Handmade Museum, both published by Coffee House Press. She has most recently served as a visiting poet at Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY.

 

Cedar Sigo is a poet and sometime teacher, active in the art and literary worlds since 1999. He studied writing and poetics at the Naropa Institute. He is the author of seven books and pamphlets of poetry, including two editions of Selected Writings (Ugly Duckling Presse , 2003 and 2005) and most recently, Expensive Magic (House Press, 2008).

 

Feb 12: Evelyn Reilly and Angela Carr on empires

at Nahl Hall, CCA Campus, Oakland

Evelyn Reilly’s most recent book is Styrofoam. She is currently working on Material Science, an exploration of the language of siteless architectural forms. Other works include Fervent Remnants of Reflective Surfaces and Hiatus.

 

Angela Carr is a poet and translator who lives in Montréal. Her books include The Rose Concordance, Ropewalk, and Risk Accretions, part of a set of chapbooks called Handwerk.

 

Feb 19: Spring Ulmer and Jen Hofer and Erica Hunt

on empires

at Nahl Hall ,CCA Campus, Oakland

 

Spring Ulmer grew up off the grid in the backwoods of Vermont. The author of Benjamin's Spectacles and The Age of Virtual Reproduction, she currently teaches at John Jay College and Fordham University.

 

Jen Hofer’s most recent publications include a series of anti-war-manifesto-poems titled one (Palm Press, 2009); The Route, an epistolary and poetic collaboration with Patrick Durgin (Atelos, 2008); and a translation of books two and three of Dolores Dorantes by Dolores Dorantes (Counterpath Press and Kenning Editions, 2008); She lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches and works as a Spanish-language interpreter, and writes letters for people in public spaces at her Escritorio Público.

 

Erica Hunt works at the forefront of experimental poetry and poetics, critical race theory, and feminist aesthetics. Her books include: Arcade, with artist Alison Saar, Piece Logic, and Local History. She is currently president of The Twenty-First Century Foundation which supports organizations addressing root causes of social injustice impacting the Black community.

 

Feb 26: Lasana Sekou and  Taylor Brady on empires

 

Lasana M. Sekou is considered the leading writer of St. Martin and one of the most prolific Caribbean poets of his generation. His books of poetry include Maroon Lives: For Grenadian Freedom Fighters, Quimbé: The Poetics of Sound, Big Up St. Martin: Essay & Poem, and The Salt Reaper: Poems from the Flats.

 

Taylor Brady lives in San Francisco. He is the author of several books of poetry and prose, most recently Occupational Treatment (2006), and Yesterday's News (2005), and is the co-author with Rob Halpern of Snow Sensitive Skin (2007). Recent poems, beginning to accumulate under the title Pamphlets, Rants, Tracts & Ballads,  attempt a series of extrapolations, re-readings, and polemics with and against the grain of the writers and musicians who instruct him. He is active in the Nonsite Collective, and has recently edited the collected essays of Will Alexander for 2010 publication.

 

March 6: Harryette Mullen on bodies

 

Harryette Mullen’s  books include Tree Tall Woman, Trimmings, S*PeRM**K*T (1992), Muse & Drudge (1995)—the latter three of which were collected into her most recent book, Recyclopedia which received a PEN Beyond Margins Award. In 2002, she published both Blues Baby: Early Poems and Sleeping with the Alphabet, a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award in poetry.

 

March 12: on communities

 

Immortal Cupboard in Search of Lorine Neidecker

with filmmaker Cathy Cook 

 

and a lecture by Jonathan Skinner: Thoughts on Things:Poetics of the Third Landscape

 

co-sponsored by Kino 21 and Poetry Center

at Artists Television Access 

992 Valencia St.

San Francisco, CA

 

Filmmaker Cathy Cook takes cues from Niedecker’s work and the Wisconsin heritage they share to explore the poetry and life of Lorine Niedecker (1903 – 1970.) Cook has exhibited her award-winning work extensively in both solo and group shows including screenings at MOMA and the Whitney Museum; she is an Associate Professor of Film/Video in Visual Arts at The University of Maryland – Baltimore County.

 

Jonathan Skinner’s poetry collections include With Naked Foot and Political Cactus Poems. He founded and edits the journal ecopoetics, which features creative-critical intersections between writing and ecology. Skinner teaches in the Environmental Studies Program at Bates College, in Central Maine.

 

March 13: Ronaldo Wilson on bodies

 

a reading and discussion of The Visible Black Body: An Interventionist's Reflection

 

Ronaldo V. Wilson is the author of Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man, winner of the 2007 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, selected by Claudia Rankine and Poems of the Black Object. He holds a PhD in English from the CUNY Graduate Center, is a co-founder of the Black Took Collective, and currently teaches at Mount Holyoke College.

 

March 20: Bruce Andrews and Leslie Scalapino

on bodies and empires

 

Bruce Andrews was born in Chicago on April Fools Day, 1948. He is the author of several dozen books of poetry and performance scores, most recently, Swoon Noir. Andrews has taught Political Science at Fordham University since 1975 and as composer, sound designer & live mixer, since the mid 1980s, he has been Music Director for Sally Silvers & Dancers.

 

Leslie Scalapino is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, inter-genre fiction-poetry-criticism and plays, including Day Ocean State of Stars' Night: Poems and Writings 1989 and 1999-2006; Zither & Autobiography; The Tango; and Orchid Jetsam. She is the editor of O Books.

 

April 9: Ammiel Alcalay and Charming Hostess singing Sarajevo Blues on empires

 

 An essayist, editor, translator, poet, and scholar, Ammiel Alcalay is the author of many texts including: After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture, the cairo notebooks, from the warring factions, and Memories of Our Future: Selected Essays, 1982-1997. He teaches at Queens College, CUNY and the CUNY Graduate Center.

 

Charming Hostess is a whirl of eerie harmony, hot rhythm and radical braininess. Our music explores the intersection of text and the sounding body-- complex ideas expressed physically, based on voice and vocal percussion, handclaps and heartbeats, sex-breath and silence.

 

April 17: Aaron Vidaver and Dorothy Trujillo Lusk

on empires

 

Aaron Vidaver is a writer and editor living on unceded Coast Salish territories in Vancouver, BC. He edits Documents in Poetics, Working Papers in Critical Practice and The Rain Review of Books and his writing has appeared in Parser, Anarcho-Modernism, Studies in Practical Negation, XCP, Counter-Interpellation and in two collaborative sequences, Field Guide To Feral Ornaments (with Roger Farr and Steven Ward) and Get Me Off This / S I T U A T I O N (with David Fujino).

 

Dorothy Trujillo Lusk is a Vancouver-based public historian and hostage negotiator. Her books include Ogress Oblige, Oral Tragedy, Redactive, Volume Delays,  and Sleek Vinyl Drill.

 

 

April 23: Truong Tran and Mary Burger on bodies

 

Truong Tran is best known for his five books of poetry: the book of perceptions (1999), placing the accents (1999), dust and conscience (2002), within the margin (2004), and four letter words (2008). He is also a creative writing teacher at San Francisco State University and Mill’s College. He is also a visual artist.

 

Mary Burger is a writer, editor, and publisher. Her books include A Partial Handbook for Navigators,  Sonny, The Boy Who Could Fly,  among others. She is co-editor of the anthology Biting the Error: Writers Explore Narrative, and of Narrativity, an online forum for theoretical writing on narrative. She edits Second Story Books, featuring cross-genre works of innovative narrative.

 

April 25: Kindergarde 

SPECIAL TIME: 5:30PM

on communities

 

Thanks to a generous Creative Work Fund Grant, Small Press Traffic proudly presents: Kindergarde: Avant-Garde Poems, Plays, Stories & Songs for Children.  Featuring the work of Sarah Anne Cox, Douglas Kearney, Camille Roy, Jaime Cortez, Juan Felipe Herrera, Juliana Spahr, Susan Gevirtz, Brent Cunningham, Bhanu Kapil, Robin Blaser, and others, this is an evening of theater not to be missed!  Directed by Chris Smith, with Costumes and Set Design by Patrick Maloney, and under the Creative Direction of Dana Teen Lomax, this SPT event is sure turn on people of all ages!

 

April 30: Laynie Browne and Lee Ann Brown

on bodies

at Nahl Hall, CCA Oakland Campus

 

 Laynie Browne is the author of nine collections of poetry and one novel.  Her most recent publications include: The Desires of Letters, and  Roseate, Points of Gold.

 

Lee Ann Brown is the author of Polyverse (Sun & Moon Press, winner of New American Poetry Series Award), The Sleep That Changed Eveything (Wesleyan University Press) and collaborations such as Nascent Toolbox with Laynie Browne.  She has performed her poetry internationally and is the editor and publisher of Tender Buttons press.  Born in 1963 in Saitama-ken, Japan and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, Brown now lives in New York City and Marshall, NC.  She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Brown University and is currently Associate Professor of English at St. John's University in NYC.  Her song cycle, The Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time and other readings can be found at the websites, PENNSOUND and The Electronic Poetry Center.

 

May 7: Eileen Tabios and Susan Gevirtz

on communities

 

Susan Gevirtz's recent books include Aerodrome Orion & Starry Messenger (forthcoming from Kelsey Street Press), Broadcast,  and Without Event: Introductory Notes (forthcoming from eohippus labs. Along with teaching locally at various Bay Area institutions, with Greek poet Siarita Kouka she runs The Paros Symposium, on Paros island, an annual meeting of poets and translators from Greece and the United States.

 

Eileen R. Tabios has released 15 print, four electronic and 1 CD poetry collections, an art essay collection, a poetry essay/interview anthology, and a short story collection. Her most recent book is Rosary of Thorns: Selected Prose Poems 1998-2009.

 

May 11: Charles Bernstein and Norman Fischer on communities

Radical Poetics and Secular Jewish Culture

 

Co-sponsored by Taube Center for Jewish Life

3200 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94118

8:00pm-9:30pm

 

A conversation and book launch with poets Charles Bernstein and Norman Fischer

 

 This new collection of essays (from the University of Alabama Press) by Jewish poets and writers (including Paul Auster, Jerome Rothenberg, Marjorie Perloff and others) highlights key issues of identity, and self–representation, and aesthetic practice for Jewish poets in the 20th century.  Join two contributing poets, Charles Bernstein and Norman Fischer, for a discussion on how being Jewish reflects on their poetics and how the tradition of the avant garde informs their identities as Jews.

 

May 22: SPECIAL EVENT: the RELIQUARIUM




 


It should go without saying that there is no better time to become a member of SPT. As we push to make it through another year with its own set of unique funding challenges, and hear of a different arts organization each day that closes its doors, we are heartened by the fact that it is our community that will sustain us.

If you value SPT and the incredible writers we showcase, show your support by becoming a member (or, if you already are, by making an additional donation) today.