Living Writers Series Fall 2018
Sentence and Sentience: Forms
This series features seven contemporary poets, critics, and artists who each render, albeit in differing genres and across a diversity of experiences, the unit of the sentence for powerfully sentient effects. Whether through poetic argument, the fictive line, or the scholarly imagination, each of these authors explore questions of race, gender, sexuality, nature, and nation in their respective practices and forms.
Humanities Lecture Hall 5:20–6:55 PM
October 11: Samiya Bashir, Reed College
Samiya Bashir is the author of three books of poetry: Field Theories, and Gospel, and Where the Apple Falls. Sometimes she makes poems of dirt. Sometimes zeros and ones. Sometimes variously rendered text. Sometimes light. Her work has been widely published, performed, installed, printed, screened, and experienced. Bashir holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley, where she served as Poet Laureate, and an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she received two Hopwood Poetry Awards. Bashir lives in Portland, Oregon where she teaches at Reed College.
Reading at Peace United Church 5:20-6:55 PM
October 25: Khary Polk, Amherst College
Khary Polk is an Assistant Professor of Black Studies & Sexuality, Women's and Gender Studies at Amherst College. He attended Oberlin College as an undergraduate, where he majored in English with a concentration in Creative Writing, and received his Ph.D. in American Studies from New York University. Polk has written for the Studio Museum of Harlem, The Journal of Negro History, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Gawker, the journal Biography, and has contributed essays to a number of queer of color anthologies, including Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity Objectification, and the Desire to Conform, If We Have To Take Tomorrow, Corpus, and Think Again. His forthcoming book, We Don’t Need Another Hero: Race, Sexuality, and Black Military Workers Abroad, will be published by University of North Carolina Press in Fall 2019.
Humanities Lecture Hall 5:20–6:55 PM
November 1: Julian Brolaski, UC Berkeley
Julian Talamantez Brolaski is the author of Of Mongrelitude (Wave Books, 2017), which was recently shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Poetry; Advice for Lovers (City Lights 2012); and Gowanus Atropolis (Ugly Duckling Press, 2011. It is coediter of NO GENDER: Reflections on the Life & Work of Kari Edwards, as well as lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the Brooklyn-based Juan & the Pines and Oakland-based The Western Skyline. Julian is currently at work on The Apache Pollen Path (forthcoming from University of New Mexico Press) with its grandmother, Inés Talamantez.
*Recital Hall 6:00–8:00 PM. Morton Marcus Reading
November 15: Gary Snyder, UC Davis
with special appearance by Artist Tom Killion
Gary Snyder is a poet, environmentalist, Zen Buddhist and educator. Involved in the Beat movement, Snyder read at the famous Six Gallery reading alongside Allen Ginsberg. Snyder’s writing focuses on environmental concerns and Zen Buddhism. He is an environmental activist who is known for his simple, clear style, as well as his first-person descriptions of his experiences in the natural world. Snyder’s poetry is influenced by Japanese haiku and Chinese verse, in addition to his knowledge of anthropological factors like oral traditions. Over his long career, Snyder has written more than 20 books of poetry and prose. In 1975, his collection Turtle Island was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His 1992 collection, No Nature, was a National Book Award finalist and he received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2008.
Humanities Lecture Hall 5:20–6:55 PM
November 29: Duy Doan, Boston University; Angie Sijun Lou, UC Santa Cruz
Duy Doan is a Vietnamese American poet and the author of We Play a Game, winner of the 2017 Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. His work has appeared in Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Slate, and TriQuarterly. A Kundiman fellow, he received an MFA in poetry from Boston University, where he later served as director of the Favorite Poem Project. Doan has taught at Boston University, Lesley University, and the Boston Conservatory. He was born in Dallas, Texas.
Angie Sijun Lou is from Seattle. Her work has appeared in the American Poetry Review, Ninth Letter, Hyphen, The Margins, Nat. Brut, and others. She is the winner of the 2018 Cosmonauts Avenue Fiction Prize and has received fellowships and awards from the Academy of American Poets and Kundiman. She is pursuing a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of California Santa Cruz.
December 6: Student Reading
