"Emergent Communities" Blog

Emergent Communities in Contemporary Experimental Writing
May 4-5, 2012

Hosted by the Poetry and Politics Research Cluster, University of California, Santa Cruz http://www.ucscpoetrypolitics.com/

Poets

below are photos and bios of the poets who are going read their work at the conference

Tisa Bryant is the author of Unexplained Presence (Leon Works, 2007), a collection of hybrid essays on myth-making and black presences in film, literature and visual art; co-editor/founder of the cross-referenced journal of narrative and storytelling possibility, The Encyclopedia Project, which published Encyclopedia Vol. 2 F-K, in 2010, and co-editor of War Diaries, an anthology on black gay men’s desire and survival, published in 2010 by AIDS Project Los Angeles, and nominated for a LAMBDA Literary Award.  Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in the journals 1913, Animal Shelter, Black Clock, Mandorla, Viz., in the ‘zine, Universal Remote: Meditations on the Absence of Michael Jackson, and in exhibit catalogs for visual artists Jaime Cortez, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, and filmmaker Cauleen Smith.  A novel, The Curator, is forthcoming.  She teaches fiction, prose, hybrid forms and innovative ethnic literature at the California Institute of the Arts.

Tisa Bryant is the author of Unexplained Presence (Leon Works, 2007), a collection of hybrid essays on myth-making and black presences in film, literature and visual art; co-editor/founder of the cross-referenced journal of narrative and storytelling possibility, The Encyclopedia Project, which published Encyclopedia Vol. 2 F-K, in 2010, and co-editor of War Diaries, an anthology on black gay men’s desire and survival, published in 2010 by AIDS Project Los Angeles, and nominated for a LAMBDA Literary Award.  Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in the journals 1913, Animal Shelter, Black Clock, Mandorla, Viz., in the ‘zine, Universal Remote: Meditations on the Absence of Michael Jackson, and in exhibit catalogs for visual artists Jaime Cortez, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, and filmmaker Cauleen Smith.  A novel, The Curator, is forthcoming.  She teaches fiction, prose, hybrid forms and innovative ethnic literature at the California Institute of the Arts.

Sueyeun Juliette Lee grew up 3 miles from the CIA. She currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA, where she edits Corollary Press, a chapbook series devoted to innovative multi-ethnic writing. She is a doctoral candidate at Temple University, where she researches experimental Asian American poetry’s connections to visual art. Juliette also co-curates the monthly poetry and occasional film/performance series POETRY ((PRO) (FANA)) with Dawn Lundy Martin, and writes poetry reviews for The Constant Critic. Her books include That Gorgeous Feeling (Coconut Books), Underground National (Factory School), and the chapbook MENTAL COMMITMENT ROBOTS (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs). You can find her at silentbroadcast.com.

Sueyeun Juliette Lee grew up 3 miles from the CIA. She currently lives in Pittsburgh, PA, where she edits Corollary Press, a chapbook series devoted to innovative multi-ethnic writing. She is a doctoral candidate at Temple University, where she researches experimental Asian American poetry’s connections to visual art. Juliette also co-curates the monthly poetry and occasional film/performance series POETRY ((PRO) (FANA)) with Dawn Lundy Martin, and writes poetry reviews for The Constant Critic. Her books include That Gorgeous Feeling (Coconut Books), Underground National (Factory School), and the chapbook MENTAL COMMITMENT ROBOTS (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs). You can find her at silentbroadcast.com.

Of Vanessa Place and Robert Fitterman’s Notes on Conceptualisms, Mary Kelly said, “I learned more about the impact of conceptualism on artists and writers than I had from reading so-called canonical works on the subject.” Kenneth Goldsmith said Vanessa Place’s work “arguably the most challenging, complex and controversial literature being written today.” Rae Armantrout said, “Vanessa Place is writing terminal poetry.” Bebrowed’s Blog said Vanessa Place is “the scariest poet on the planet.” Someone on Twitter said: “Vanessa Place killed poetry.”

Of Vanessa Place and Robert Fitterman’s Notes on Conceptualisms, Mary Kelly said, “I learned more about the impact of conceptualism on artists and writers than I had from reading so-called canonical works on the subject.” Kenneth Goldsmith said Vanessa Place’s work “arguably the most challenging, complex and controversial literature being written today.” Rae Armantrout said, “Vanessa Place is writing terminal poetry.” Bebrowed’s Blog said Vanessa Place is “the scariest poet on the planet.” Someone on Twitter said: “Vanessa Place killed poetry.”

Anna Moschovakis is a part of the Ugly Duckling Presse publishing collective and the author of I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone (Turtle Point Press 2006) and You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake (Coffee House Press 2011), as well as chapbooks from Phylum Press, Sisyphus, Big Game Books, Belladonna, and Dusie Kollectiv. She also translates novels from French and is core faculty in Bard’s interdisciplinary MFA program.

Anna Moschovakis is a part of the Ugly Duckling Presse publishing

collective and the author of I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to

Everyone (Turtle Point Press 2006) and You and Three Others Are

Approaching a Lake (Coffee House Press 2011), as well as chapbooks

from Phylum Press, Sisyphus, Big Game Books, Belladonna, and Dusie

Kollectiv. She also translates novels from French and is core faculty

in Bard’s interdisciplinary MFA program.

Juliana Spahr edits with Jena Osman the book series Chain Links and with nineteen other poets she edits of the collectively funded Subpress. With David Buuck she wrote Army of Lovers, a book about two friends who are writers in a time of war and ecological collapse (forthcoming from City Lights). She has edited with Stephanie Young A Megaphone: Some Enactments, Some Numbers, and Some Essays about the Continued Usefulness of Crotchless-pants-and-a-machine-gun Feminism (Chain Links, 2011), with Joan Retallack Poetry & Pedagogy: the Challenge of the Contemporary (Palgrave, 2006), and with Claudia Rankine American Women Poets in the 21st Century (Wesleyan U P, 2002). And several times she has organized free schools with Joshua Clover: the 95 cent Skool (summer of 2010) and the Durruti Free Skool (summer of 2011).

Juliana Spahr edits with Jena Osman the book series Chain Links and with nineteen other poets she edits of the collectively funded Subpress. With David Buuck she wrote Army of Lovers, a book about two friends who are writers in a time of war and ecological collapse (forthcoming from City Lights). She has edited with Stephanie Young A Megaphone: Some Enactments, Some Numbers, and Some Essays about the Continued Usefulness of Crotchless-pants-and-a-machine-gun Feminism (Chain Links, 2011), with Joan Retallack Poetry & Pedagogy: the Challenge of the Contemporary (Palgrave, 2006), and with Claudia Rankine American Women Poets in the 21st Century (Wesleyan U P, 2002). And several times she has organized free schools with Joshua Clover: the 95 cent Skool (summer of 2010) and the Durruti Free Skool (summer of 2011).

Ronaldo V. Wilson is the author of Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man (University of Pittsburgh, 2008), winner of the 2007 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and Poems of the Black Object (Futurepoem Books, 2009), winner of the Thom Gunn Award and the Asian American Literary Award in Poetry in 2010. Co-founder of the Black Took Collective, Wilson is also a Visiting Assistant Professor of Poetry, Fiction and Literature in the Literature Department of the University of California, Santa Cruz. His latest book, Farther Traveler: Poetry, Prose, Other, is forthcoming from Counterpath Press in 2013.

Ronaldo V. Wilson is the author of Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man (University of Pittsburgh, 2008), winner of the 2007 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and Poems of the Black Object (Futurepoem Books, 2009), winner of the Thom Gunn Award and the Asian American Literary Award in Poetry in 2010. Co-founder of the Black Took Collective, Wilson is also a Visiting Assistant Professor of Poetry, Fiction and Literature in the Literature Department of the University of California, Santa Cruz. His latest book, Farther Traveler: Poetry, Prose, Other, is forthcoming from Counterpath Press in 2013.

Conference Schedule

UCSC’s Poetry and Politics presents

Emergent Communities in Contemporary Experimental Writing,

a two-day conference and book fair with nightly readings

Friday

Conference Panels, Humanities 1, Room 210

Book Fair, Humanities 1, Room 202, 9-3pm

8:30-9:00

Sign-in with coffee, bagels, fruit

9:00-9:30

Welcome and opening comments with Juliana Leslie and Andrea Quaid

9:30-10:45

Performing Community/Performing Narrative

Respondent: Tisa Bryant

Atlanta Poets Group: Local Plural Vocal: Community, the We-Agent, and the APG

Janice Lee: Narrative As Conceptual & Cognitive Process Or What Specter Haunts the     Sentence We’ve Created

Wendy S. Walters: Some Notes on The Short-term We: Building Goal-Oriented Communities of Known Duration

11:00-12:15

Emergent Feminisms

Respondent: Sueyeun Juliette Lee

Michelle Detorie: Notes Toward a Feral Poetics

Belladonna* Collaborative: Intentional Communities and the Role of Curatorship

    featuring

Cara Benson: Material Lives

Krystal Languell: The Coming-To

Rachel Levisky: Or Trying to Tell it Straight, Though it is So Very Slant

12:15-1:15

Lunch (nearby University cafes will be open, or please bring your own)

Lunchtime Readings

1:15-2:30

Small Press Roundtable

Moderators: Harold Abramowitz and Amanda Ackerman

Participants include Teresa Carmody David Lau, Kristine Leja and James Maughn

2:45-4:00

Community and Anti-Community

Respondent: Juliana Spahr

Brian Ang: The Occupy Phenomenon and Anti-Community Poetics

Angela Carr: Reluctant Subjects of “Territory, Identity and Winter” (or, Government Arts     Funding for Poetry and the Uncertain Community)

Jeanine Webb: “Weak Intimacy,” Celebrity, and Bay Poetics

4:30 – 6:30

Dinner at the Kresge Provost House for conference participants

Reading at Felix Kulpa Gallery, 107 Elm Street, Santa Cruz, 7pm

Anna Moschovakis

Vanessa Place

Ronaldo Wilson

*****

Saturday

Conference Panels, Humanities 1, Room 210

Book Fair, Humanities 1, Room 202, 9-3pm

8:30-9:00

Coffee, bagels, fruit

9:00-10:15

Towards a Poetics of Perishability

Respondent: Ronaldo Wilson

Brent Armendinger: Radical Impermanence: Notes Towards a Poetics of Perishability

Jen Hofer:  Materiality: Mortality: notes on the making and context of “Uncovering: A     Quilted Poem Made from Donated and Foraged Materials from Wendover, Utah.”

Tung-Hui Hu: The Last Time You Cried

Genevieve Kaplan: Erasure, Perishability & The Appropriated Book

Jill Magi: Manifesting the Perishable / Quitting the Perishable

10:30-11:45

Emergent Conceptualisms

Respondent: Vanessa Place

Natalia Fedorova: Reanimating Conceptualism

Trisha Low: 4 REAL: On authenticity, influence & post-conceptual narcissism

Katie Price: The Clinimatic Poetics of the Noulipo

11:45-1:00

Catered Lunch, for all conference participants and conference goers

Lunchtime Readings

1:00-2:15

Poetry Communities: Embodied Poetics workshop

Introduction: Matthew Landry

Amber DiPietra

Petra Kuppers

Denise Leto

2:30-4:00

Editing/Transcription/Ethics

Respondent: Anna Moschovakis

Jessica Beard: “Far from the reality of their loves”: Textual Editing, Virtual Readers and the Unstable Text

Kate Eichhorn: The Affective Economies of Editing

Michael Nardone: A Transcriptive Poetics

4:00-6:00

Dinner Break

Reading at the Felix Kulpa Gallery, 107 Elm Street, Santa Cruz, 6pm

Tisa Bryant

Sueyuen Juliette Lee

Juliana Spahr

Sponsored by the Institute for Humanities Research, Porter College
Hitchcock Poetry Fund, Literature Department, the Division of Graduate Studies, the Graduate Student Association and Kresge College.
Staff support provided by the IHR, UCSC.

Welcome!

This blog is intended to facilitate an online community for anyone participating in the “Emergent Communities in Experimental Writing” conference at UCSC, May 2012. Participants should feel free to submit any relevant material to be posted here, such as preparations or projects for the conference, random ideas on community, as well as any other relevant information.

The conference is being hosting by us, the UCSC Poetry and Politics Research Cluster. Check out our website for more information and events!: http://www.ucscpoetrypolitics.com/