Brenda Hillman SPLAB Visiting Poet – Nov, 2011

Talk, Friday, November 11, 7:30P at SPLAB

Workshop, Saturday, November 12, 1-4P @ SPLAB

Reading Saturday, Nov 12 at 7:30P @ SPLAB

Brenda Hillman City 11.11.11

Across Categories: The Personal-Political- Innovative-Eco-Expressive Poem (November 12, 2011 Brenda Hillman SPLAB Workshop) Participants will be asked to bring fresh writings for discussion (work that has not been previously “workshopped”) and a question they’d like to ask; these should be poetic pieces in any form having to do with the overlap between emotional, environmental and social concerns. More details here.  Suggested workshop donation $75. For the reading $10 suggested donation 7:30 Saturday, November 12.

This event made possible with support from 4Culture and Poets & Writers.

Brenda Hillman will give a talk at SPLAB at on Friday, November 11 at 7:30, on Innovation and Activism in Poetry. Proceeds will benefit 91.3, KBCS.FM. She will give a poetry reading at SPLAB Saturday, Nov 12, 2011 at 7:30P. Suggested donation is $10.

Poets & Writers states “[Hillman] reminds us that the language we use when ordering a sandwich is also the language we use to make art. Her environmental concerns prove writers can offer more than just aesthetic pleasure.” Among the awards Hillman has received are the 2005 William Carlos Williams Prize for poetry and Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Hillman is the Olivia Filippi Professor of Poetry at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, California.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

George Bowering, My Darling Nellie Grey

George Bowering  is a prolific Canadian novelist, poet, historian, and biographer. The author of more than 90 books, Bowering is the best-known of a group of young poets including who studied together at the University of British Columbia in the 1950s. There they founded the journal TISH. On SPLAB Presents for the week of August 15, 2011 George talks about his new book My Darling Nellie Grey. See more interviews here: http://splab.org/2010/11/interviews/ and listen for SPLAB Presents Thursdays at 4:30P on KBCS.FM.

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival Report

On August 5 Meredith and I left for Beijing and after a one-night stop there, we were dropped in to an international “City of Poets” to use C.A. Conrad’s phrase. This was in Xining at the Qinghai Hotel. All my expenses were covered and Meredith only had to cover her plane fare for this journey and that’s just the first example of the considerable generosity with which China treats poets.

It helps to have a high ranking Government official who is a poet. This is the Director for the Qinghai Provice Department of Information, Jidi Majia, the visionary behind this conference:

 

 

 

 

 

Jidi is a poet who came from the Nuosu people of SW China. That’s me holding a copy of his book of poems translated into English by our guide, Denis Mair:

 

 

 

 

 

Denis had to almost translate on the fly the short version of my essay on Pacific Rim Poetics but did a wonderful job, though our presentation went about 19 minutes. (The long version of the essay is here.)

Among the inspiring poets I have met here are: Jami Proctor, who has a wonderful sense of humor, is a fine poet who studied with Brenda Hillman, speaks Mandarin and was one of the people who translated into English at some conference events.

 

 

 

 

 

Javier Bello, from Santiago, Chile, has a wicked sense of humor and hit it off with Meredith right away. I told him about C.A. Conrad and thought he would like his work a lot.  Jose Kozer calls him a true poet.

 

 

 

 

Xi Chuang was one of several people who enjoyed my presentation and he gave me a copy of the galley for his new book Notes on the Mosquito to be published in English by New Directions. He’ll be in Seattle in late September. Mai Mung teaches at Connecticut College and did a presentation: In Search of the Absolutely Blind Encounter which was very thought-provoking. Sun Xiaoya teaches at Peking University and read the Chinese version of Elegies for Slaughter (X). (Audio here.) She will be our guide for a day in Beijing and has asked me to lecture at Peking University, but I can’t stay until September. Ugh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sun took a photo of me after the reading at the Qinghai-Guide National Geological Park, which has been open for less than two years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mer (who did almost all the photos you’re going to see) got a magnificent one of the mountains in Guide County.

 

 

 

 

 

We have certainly been off the beaten path, from the mountains in Guide County, to the huge and magnificent Qinghai Lake. And many other nearby holy sites, including Kum Bum Monastery, more photos to come here, or on our Facebook page, which we cannot access here.

And don’t even get me started on the Chinglish we’ve encountered. It’s inspired many an American Sentence, to be revealed later.  Here’s a sneak preview:

 

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Cabri, Mancini, Mittenthal @ SPLAB Sunday 8.21.11

Louis Cabri

Donato Mancini

Robert Mittenthal

WHAT:                             WAR OF READING – The World Books of Louis CABRI, Donato MANCINI & Robert MITTENTHAL

WHERE:                         SPokenword LAB (SPLAB) – 3651 S Edmunds in Columbia City, just west of Rainier, one block south of Alaska.

WHEN:                     7:30 PM, SUNDAY, AUGUST 21, 2011

TICKETS:                               Suggested donation of $5-10 accepted at the door.
Seattle Spoken Word Lab presents a reading by Louis CABRI, Donato MANCINI, Robert MITTENTHAL, who have new books titled Poetryworld, Buffet World and Wax World, respectively.  Donations for admission will be taken at the door on the evening of the performance.  The reading starts at 7:30pm on Sunday 21st of August 2011.

Louis Cabri is author of Poetryworld, just out from CUE.  His book, The Mood Embosser (Coach House, 2002), was acclaimed a book of the year by Small Press Traffic. Recent chapbooks include What Is Venice? (Wrinkle) and — that can’t (Nomados).  He is editor of a selected poems by Fred Wah (The False Laws of Narrative) and with Peter Quartermain of an issue of critical essays on sound and poetry in English Studies in Canada. He teaches modern and contemporary poetry, literary theory, and creative writing at the University of Windsor, in Ontario.
http://www.cuebooks.ca/new_titles.php

Donato Mancini’s interdisciplinary practice focuses mainly on poetry, bookworks, text-based visual art and cultural criticism.  His new book is Buffet World (New Star, 2011).  His prior two New Star books of procedural and visual writing, Ligatures and Æthel were each nominated for the ReLit Award, and Ligatures received honourable mention in the Alcuin Book design awards. Mancini’s collaborative visual works have been exhibited in Canada, the US, Scandinavia and Cuba. Long time member of the Kootenay School of Writing, he was a principal curator of the interdisciplinary N 49 15.832 – W 123 05.921 Positions Colloquium at VIVO in August 2008. Other recent publications include Fact `N’ Value (Fillip Editions). His poetic and critical writings have appeared in many places, including The Capilano Review, Open Letter, West Coast Line, Rampike, and Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing.  He lives in Vancouver BC. http://www.newstarbooks.com/book.php?book_id=1554200547

Robert Mittenthal is author of Value Unmapped (Nomados), Martyr Economy, Ready Terms (Tsunami Editions), and the newly arrived Wax World (Chax, 2011).  Irrational Dude, a chapbook of collaborative work with Nico Vassilakis, was published in 2009 by tir aux pigeons.  Mittenthal was instrumental in creating and curating the Subtext Reading Series in Seattle, and the last few years has been working to induce collective thought via a series of related reading groupuscles, a project called “autonomous university.”  He blogs at http://rmutts.blogspot.com/
http://www.chax.org/poets/mittenthal.htm
SPLAB is an intergenerational spokenword Performance, Resource and Outreach center dedicated to Poetry, Story-telling, Conversation, Debate, Consciousness and Building community through shared experience of the spoken and written word. We create an environment by encouraging writers to develop or deepen their individual writing practices and providing a supportive community so they may deepen their own personal gestures.

http://www.splab.org
Directions to SPLAB: SPLAB is easily accessible by personal and mass transit. If traveling by car, take the 163A exit on I5 for Columbia Way heading East toward Columbia City; or take Exit 3 off of Eastbound I-90 and head south on Rainier.

Mass Transit Options: Get there from Downtown on the Light Rail – SPLAB is just a short walk east from the Columbia City Station (ETA from Westlake: 15 minutes); or the #7 bus – southbound from Downtown towards Rainier Beach (ETA from Pike Street: 20 minutes; Or from Capitol Hill: #8 bus (ETA 20 minutes); from the Udistrict take the #48 to Mount Baker Transit Center, then transfer to #7 or #8 (ETA 45 minutes).

 

Posted in Blog | Tagged , , | 1 Comment