JOHN ASHBERY POETRY SERIES CONTINUES AT BARD COLLEGE WITH THREE READINGS IN MARCH, APRIL, AND MAY Poets Tom Raworth, Clark Coolidge, and Michael Gizzi; and Rosmarie Waldrop and Keith Waldrop will read from recent works
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—The John Ashbery Poetry Series continues with three readings by contemporary poets during the months of March, April, and May. The series, presented by The Bard Center, is free and open to the public and begins at 3:30 p.m. in Room 102 of the F. W. Olin Humanities Building at Bard College.
On Friday, March 24, Tom Raworth will read from his recent works. Raworth was born and grew up in London. During the 1970s he traveled and worked in the United States and Mexico, returning to England in 1977 to be Resident Poet at King's College, Cambridge. Since 1966 he has published more than forty books and pamphlets of poetry, prose, and translations. His graphic work has been shown in France, Italy, and the United States, and he has collaborated and performed with musicians, painters, and other poets. In 1991 he was invited to teach at the University of Cape Town, where he was the first European writer to visit in thirty years. Raworth is the recipient of the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize and the Cholmondeley Award. Among his recent publications are Tottering State; Landscaping the Future; Meadow; Etruscan Reader V; and Clean and Well Lit: Selected Poems, 1987–1995.
On Friday, April 14, Clark Coolidge and Michael Gizzi will read selections from their recent works. Clark Coolidge was a drummer in a bebop jazz band during the Beat era and has made music central to his work. Influenced by the work of Jack Kerouac, he writes in his recent book, Now It's Jazz, Writings on Kerouac and the Sounds, "Reading his lines I can easily if temporarily . . . convince myself that I am inking down the words, that I am this Jack Kerouac." He is the author of The Rova Improvisations and At Egypt. Michael Gizzi is the author of several books, including No Both, Rejection, Interferon, and Lowell Connector (with Clark Coolidge and John Yau). His poems have been published in many journals and several anthologies, including Poésie americaine contemporaine and The Poet's Calendar for the Millenium. He is the recipient of the Gertrude Stein Award in Innovative Writing and a Massachusetts Artists Foundation grant. A translator and teacher, Gizzi was poet-in-residence at Fondation Royaumont, Paris; Brown University; and Simon's Rock College, where he was also named an honorary fellow. Gizzi is currently editor of Hard Press, Inc. in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
The last reading of the series will be held on Friday, May 5, with Rosmarie Waldrop and Keith Waldrop, the editors and publishers of Burning Deck Press. Rosmarie Waldrop is the author of five books of poetry, including The Aggressive Stranger and Streets Enough to Welcome Snow. She has also written one book of criticism, Against Language?, and many articles and reviews. She is the translator of Peter Weiss's Bodies and Shadows, Edmond Jabès's The Book of Questions, and The Vienna Group: Six Major Austrian Poets. She received a Columbia Translation Center Award and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. Keith Waldrop, professor of English at Brown University, is the author of numerous collections of poetry and the translator of The Selected Poems of Edmond Jabès, as well as works by Claude Royet-Journoud, Anne-Marie Albiach, and Jean Grosjean. He is the author of The Opposite of Letting the Mind Wander: Selected Poems and a Few Songs; Hegel's Family; Shipwreck in Haven; The Balustrade; Potential Random; Light While There Is Light; and The Silhouette of the Bridge, which received an America Award. He received a translation fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a fellowship from Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, Berlin (DAAD).
For further information about the series, call The Bard Center at 914-758-7425.
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