SEPTEMBER 3, 1998-vol30n2: RENOWNED AUTHORS TO APPEAR IN LITERARY SERIES

VOLUME 30, NUMBER 2 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1998

Renowned authors to appear in literary series

By MARA McGINNIS
News Services Editorial Assistant

"Wednesdays at 4 PLUS," the bi-annual literary series sponsored by the Poetics Program in the Department of English, will feature a number of renowned authors, poets and playwrights in its Fall 1998 program.

The series will open on Saturday with a collaborative poetry-and-jazz performance featuring musicians Steve Swallow, David Torn and Chris Massey, hosted by Robert Creeley, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the English department and Samuel P. Capen Chair of Poetry and the Humanities.

The series also will include an extensive, five-part French Poetry Festival featuring readings from Renée Riese Hubert and French authors Judd Hubert, Michael Deguy, Christian Prigent, Pierre Ouellet and Marcelin Pleynet.

Other highlights will include readings from contemporary American authors Eileen Myles, Robert Kelly, Fred D'Aguiar and Lisel Mueller, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

"Wednesdays at 4 Plus" also is sponsored by the James H. McNulty Chair (Dennis Tedlock), the Samuel P. Capen Chair of Poetry and the Humanities (Creeley) and the David Gray Chair of Poetry and Letters (Charles Bernstein), all in the Department of English; the Melodia E. Jones Chair in French (Raymond Federman) in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, and Poetry and Rare Books Collection Curator Robert Bertholf.

All events will be free and open to the public.

The fall program is dedicated to the memory of Albert S. Cook, who served as chair of the English department from 1963-66. Cook hired 25 literary luminaries-among them Creeley-who helped bring the English department into national prominence. He died on July 7.

The series is produced with the cooperation of the Center for the Arts, the Department of Media Study and Talking Leaves bookstore. It is made possible, in part, by Poets & Writers, Inc., through a major grant from the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and a grant from the Literature Program of the New York State Council on the Arts. Call 645-3810 for more information.

Wednesdays at 4 Plus schedule
(All venues are on the North Campus, unless otherwise indicated.)

Saturday:
Musical performance, Steve Swallow, David Torn and Chris Massey, 8 p.m., Hallwalls, 2495 Main St., Buffalo. Featured will be bass great Steve Swallow, "Avant Guitar's King Snake" David Torn and Buffalo's own "different drummer" Chris Massey in a first-time trio performance to be hosted by Robert Creeley.

Sept. 16:
Poetry and prose reading, Fred D'Aguiar, 4 p.m., Center for the Arts Screening Room. A poet, novelist and playwright, D'Aguiar teaches at the University of Miami, where he directs the master of fine arts program.

Sept. 17:
Lecture, "Jim Jones in Paradise: Caribbean Literature Since 1978," Fred D'Aguiar, 3:30 p.m., 120 Clemens Hall.

Sept. 18:
Poetry readings, Robert Kelly, Gerrit Lansing, 11 a.m.; talks, 2 p.m., 420 Capen. Kelly, a poet, short-story writer, essayist, novelist and editor, has published more than 50 books. He teaches at Bard College. Lansing, whose lifework in poetry was recently collected in a volume, 'Heavenly Tree/Soluble Forest," has worked as editor of the poetry magazine SET.

Sept. 22:
McNulty Chair Lecture, "Comparative Poetry/Poetics: Microsystemic Soundings versus The World," Paul Friedrich, 3:30 p.m. 540 Clemens Hall. Frederich, who teaches at the University of Chicago, is the author of many articles and books of anthropology, criticism, linguistics and poetry.

Sept. 23:
Talk/performance, "Russian Poetry: Readings/Translations/Critiques," Paul Friedrich, 4 p.m., Center for the Arts Screening Room.

Sept. 24:
Lecture, "Syntax in the Whispering Gallery," Geoff Ward, author, editor, poet and head of the English Department at the University of Dundee, Scotland, 12:30 p.m., 438 Clemens Hall.

Sept. 25:
Poetry reading, Geoff Ward, 8 p.m., Cornershop Gallery, 82 Lafayette St., Buffalo.

Oct. 6:
Lecture, "Talking From the Body in Nakota Storytelling Performance," Brenda Farnell, modern dancer, linguistic anthropologist. She teaches at the University of Illinois-Urbana. 3:30 p.m., 540 Clemens Hall.

Oct. 7:
Talk/performance, "Speech and Other Gestural Movements: Toward a Dynamically Embodied Poetics," Brenda Farnell, 4 p.m., Center for the Arts Screening Room.

Oct. 9:
Poetry reading, Joseph Lease, author, poetry editor of The Boston Review. He teaches poetry writing and composition at Tufts University. 8 p.m., Cornershop Gallery, 82 Lafayette St., Buffalo.

Oct. 14:
Third Jones Chair French Poetry Festival (I), Bilingual reading and talk, Michael Deguy, one of France's most celebrated poets and professeur des universites at the University of Paris VIII, 4 p.m., Center for the Arts Screening Room.

Oct. 15:
Lecture, "Hannah Weiner: Clairvoyance And Trauma," Maria Damon, author of "The Dark End of the Street: Margins in American Vanguard Poetry." She teaches literature at the University of Minnesota. 12:30 p.m., 438 Clemens Hall.

Oct. 21:
Poetry Reading, Author Robert Grenier, who edited the 1976 "Selected Poems" by Robert Creeley, 4 p.m., Center for the Arts Screening Room.

Oct. 22:
Talk, "Realizing Things," Robert Grenier, 12:30 p.m., 438 Clemens Hall.

Oct. 28:
Third Jones Chair French Poetry Festival (II), Bilingual reading, Christian Prigent, founder of radical French magazine TXT, leading practitioner of experimental poetry, and Pierre Ouellet, poet, novelist, critic and author, who teaches at the University of Quebec at Montreal, 4 p.m., Center for the Arts Screening Room.

Oct. 29:
Talks by Prigent and Ouellet, 10 a.m., 438 Clemens Hall.

Nov. 4:
Poetry reading, Myung Mi Kim, poet, recipient of two Gertrude Stein Awards and associate professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University, 4 p.m., Center for the Arts Screening Room.

Nov. 6:
Silverman Poetry Reading, Lisel Mueller, winner of 1997 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, 8 p.m., 250 Baird Hall.

Nov. 9:
Talks, "Keeping Score," Eileen Myles, poet, short-story writer, playwright and reviewer who writes from the viewpoint of woman, poet and lesbian; and "My Utopia," Camille Roy, author of prose and fiction, 4 p.m. 438 Clemens Hall.

Nov. 11:
Third Jones Chair French Poetry Festival (III) Lecture, "Reading Performative Metaphors," Judd Hubert, author, professor emeritus, University of California, Irvine, noon, 930 Clemens Hall.

Nov. 11:
Third Jones Chair French Poetry Festival (IV), Bilingual poetry reading and talk, Marcelin Pleynet, magazine editor, literary critic, art historian and novelist, 4 p.m., Center for the Arts Screening Room.

Nov. 12:
Third Jones Chair French Poetry Festival (V), Lecture, "Removable Boundaries: Illustration and Bookarts," Renée Hubert , professor emerita of French and comparative literature, University of California, Irvine, 12:30 p.m., 438 Clemens Hall.