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David Cohen Prize for Literature announced

Title: David Cohen Prize for Literature announced

Location: London, England
Description: The David Cohen Prize was established in 1992 by David and Veronica Cohen, and Arts Council England, and is recognised as one of Britain’s most distinguished literary honours. The Prize is awarded to a writer in the English language who is a citizen of the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland. In the past it has been awarded to novelists, dramatists, poets and essayists. The most recent recipient, Julian Barnes, joined a distinguished list of winners, including Seamus Heaney, V S Naipaul, Harold Pinter, Muriel Spark, William Trevor, Doris Lessing, Beryl Bainbridge and Thom Gunn (jointly), Michael Holroyd, and Derek Mahon.

Learn more here.

Date: March 7, 2013

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Poems on the Underground reading

Title: Poems on the Underground reading

Location: London, England
Description: A new set of poems is to be posted shortly on the Tube for eight weeks. The poems are selected from the new anthology, Poems on the Underground: A New Edition (Particular Books / Penguin 2012), published November 1st. A series of events will be held to celebrate the new set of poems and the new anthology. On this occasion, guest poet David Constantine joins the Editors and the Apollo Chamber Players for poetry by EU poets and music by Bach and Bartok.

Learn more here.

Date: December 5, 2012

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Austin International Poetry Festival

Title: Austin International Poetry Festival

Location: Austin, Texas, US
Description: It started with four founders back in 1992, and today, this four-day, citywide, all-inclusive annual celebration of poets and poetry has grown to become “the largest non-juried poetry festival in the U.S.” It includes several live local readings, a variety of poetry workshops, open mics, two anthology competitions and readings, a poetry slam, two poetry all-nighters and a poetry symposium! AIPF is the “work of heART” of volunteer-based local non-profit Austin Poets International, Inc (API).

Learn more here.
Start Date: April 11, 2013
End Date: April 14, 2013

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Alice Notley reads at Sonoma State University

Title: Alice Notley reads at Sonoma State University

Location: Rohnert Park, California, US
Description: Renowned poet Alice Notley, one of America’s most engaging and crucial poets, will be reading from her work on Thursday, November 29 at Sonoma State University’s Green Music Center. She has garnered many awards and distinctions, including the Griffin Poetry Prize. She is also often identified as a prominent member of the eclectic second generation of The New York School.

Learn more here.

Date: November 29, 2012

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Celebrating Christopher Logue

Title: Celebrating Christopher Logue

Location: London, England
Description: At this event in the Purcell Room of the Southbank Centre, Brian Patten, Sam Berkson, Kate Tempest, Alan Howard, Christopher Reid, Kate Dimbleby, John Hegley and Michael Horovitz, among others, will create an offbeat, affectionate celebration of Christopher Logue’s life.

This event has been curated and will be hosted by writer Rick Stroud.

Learn more here.

Date: December 4, 2012

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from Once

John Steffler

copyright ©2010 by John Steffler



***

The neighbour’s lawn mower roars and recedes.
My mother sleeps on the loveseat, my father
on the couch. I shake out mats in the blinding
porch, gather grey tea towels for the laundry.
My father bustles stiffly out to plug in
the kettle, comes up from the cellar with chunks
of maple, measuring, figuring – how to make
wooden nuts and bolts – then is suddenly
sunk in an armchair, open-mouthed asleep,
while June sunlight storms through the house.

***

I ask about the empty mirror frame on the kitchen
wall. My father glances at me and away, looking
reluctant, caught. Then speaks with odd formality,
doggedly, against some current of shyness or disbelief
or sorrow or fear. He says while they were having
lunch there at the table a few weeks ago they heard
a loud bang like a gunshot close by. He looked around
and found the mirror down on the floor, its heavy glass
split up the middle. “You try to get that off of there,”
he points to the empty frame. A slotted hole in its back
locks the frame tight to a round-headed screw set deep
in a wall stud. I lift and slowly work it free, then press it
back into place, centred, anchored. Enclosed blank
wall. “There’s no way that could have come off
by itself,” he says, bare-headed under low dark cloud.

***

Curled on the loveseat under a blanket
much of each day, sleeping or merely
still, her open eyes travelling the room.

She never grieves for herself, never
stands apart disowning or lamenting
the ruin, but sometimes terrors sweep
through her, weightless spinning and inner
sleets, and she sits shaking, calling out that
she’s falling, and my father or I hold her
trying to save her from deep space.

Notes on the Poem

"Once" is a sequence of poetic snapshots dropped softly in the center of John Steffler's collection "Lookout." Steffler's poignant observations about a family coping with their parents' decline are shot through with flashes of life, grace and dignity. Certain objects and images are referenced with almost talisman-like reverence. What are those talismans possibly meant to achieve, for either the narrator or the reader?

Central to the excerpts from the "Once" sequence shown here is the striking image of an empty mirror frame. That the mirror has broken and now the parents can't glimpse themselves in it is haunting. That the mirror broke in a sudden and almost cataclysmic fashion, with "a loud bang like a gunshot close by", is shocking and troubling. That the frame remained up, stubbornly, is both bemusing and a bit unsettling. "Enclosed blank wall" bluntly and richly sums it up. What does it all portend?

A "frame" around this image are references to the narrator's mother burrowed in a loveseat. That she sleeps or is "merely still" in the loveseat suggests it is a retreat for her in a house that has grown bewildering and threatening around her. That it is the place where her husband and her child comfort her is deeply moving.

"Once" establishes the same intimacy and balance of stoicism, wistfulness and preemptive grief of Anne Carson's "Father's Old Blue Cardigan", from "Men in the Off Hours". (Elsewhere in the "Once" sequence, the narrator's mother also appears in "her drooping cardigan.") Ultimately, are the loveseats and cardigans that offered embracing sanctuary and protection to the loved ones soon to be departed ... really talismans to those who will be left behind?
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Midwest Poet Series reading by Les Murray

Title: Midwest Poet Series reading by Les Murray

Location: Kansas City, Missouri, US
Description: New Letters quarterly and its audio companion, New Letters on the Air, are part of a national literary tradition that serves readers and writers across the world. Started as a publication of the private University of Kansas City in 1934, New Letters continues to seek the best new writing, whether from established writers or from those just ready to be discovered; and it will support those writers, readers and, yes, listeners, who want to experience the joy of writing that both surprises and inspires us all. Part of that tradition includes promoting readings and related events in Kansas city and outlying regions in Missouri and Kansas.

The Midwest Poets Series presents Les Murray, Australia’s leading poet and one of the greatest contemporary poets writing in English. His work has been published in 10 languages. Murray will read at Mabee Theater, Sedgwick Hall, Rockhurst University, 54th Street and Troost, Kansas City, Mo. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Learn more here.
Date: April 11, 2013

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Dean Young writing master class and reading at University of Missouri – Kansas City

Title: Dean Young writing master class and reading at University of Missouri – Kansas City

Location: Kansas City, Missouri, US
Description: New Letters quarterly and its audio companion, New Letters on the Air, are part of a national literary tradition that serves readers and writers across the world. Started as a publication of the private University of Kansas City in 1934, New Letters continues to seek the best new writing, whether from established writers or from those just ready to be discovered; and it will support those writers, readers and, yes, listeners, who want to experience the joy of writing that both surprises and inspires us all. Part of that tradition includes promoting readings and related events in Kansas city and outlying regions in Missouri and Kansas.

Poet and 2013 Cockefair Chair writer-in-residence, Dean Young, will hold a master class on writing, Sunday, 2-5 p.m., room 104 Cockefair Hall, UMKC; and he will conduct a public interview with faculty and a reading Monday, 6:00 p.m., Plaza branch of the Kansas City, Mo., public library. These events are produced and directed by the UMKC English Department’s M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing, cosponsored by the Writers at Work Series and the Kansas City Public Library. Financial support comes from the Cockefair Chair in Continuing Education.

Learn more here.
Start Date: February 24, 2013
End Date: February 26, 2013

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Midwest Poet Series reading by Mark Doty

Title: Midwest Poet Series reading by Mark Doty

Location: Kansas City, Missouri, US
Description: New Letters quarterly and its audio companion, New Letters on the Air, are part of a national literary tradition that serves readers and writers across the world. Started as a publication of the private University of Kansas City in 1934, New Letters continues to seek the best new writing, whether from established writers or from those just ready to be discovered; and it will support those writers, readers and, yes, listeners, who want to experience the joy of writing that both surprises and inspires us all. Part of that tradition includes promoting readings and related events in Kansas city and outlying regions in Missouri and Kansas.

Mark Doty reads as part of the Midwest Poets Series. Mark Doty’s eight books include Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008. Doty reads at Mabee Theater, Sedgwick Hall, Rockhurst University, 54th Street and Troost, Kansas City, Mo. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Learn more here.
Date: January 31, 2013