Columbia College Chicago MFA in Poetry

The Chicago Poetry Bordello Presents:“A Leap Year Valentine”

2012-01-27T13:11:00.006-06:00

Save the date and plan your escape!
2012 Feb. 29 in the lounge at the Chopin Theatre

1543 W Division, Chicago, IL 60642

$5 if dressed Victorian $10 if not.

Musical guests: Jeff Levin on piano! & The White City Rippers!
Burlesque beauties! & Chicago’s finest Poetry Whores!
Of course, nectar for the thirsty souls!

Just in time for AWP!

During the 19th century, the rules governing courtship were strict: only men were allowed to propose marriage to women, with one exception. On the all-too-seldom day of February 29th, which only occurred in Leap Years, women were allowed to initiate proposals without social condemnation. This tradition was well-known when postcards appeared and it rapidly became a regular card-giving occasion.

Help keep the tradition alive! Join the Chicago Poetry Bordello at our fair city's beloved ChopinTheatre. Poetry whores will delight you with private readings and handmade Leap Year favors. Of course, they will only be giving these Leap Day Valentine keepsakes to the most admired patrons.

Will you be the dearest one your favorite poetry whore adores?

For more information about the Chopin Theatre:
Http://www.chopintheatre.com/about_us.php

Come All Ye Sinners to the Chicago Poetry Brothel

2011-10-19T13:24:00.002-05:00

This Friday, Oct 21, 2011 at Thalia Hall, 8PM to Midnight, $5 if dressed Victorian. $10 if not.

Join the Chicago Poetry Brothel (the last show of the year!) in the parlor at Ristorante al Teatro (1227 W 18th St) for a night of dining, burlesque beauty (Pearl Pistol!) and literary debauchery! Special guest and Prose Whore, Karen Abbott, the bestselling author of Sin and the Second City and American Rose, will join your favorite Poetry Whores for private readings. Indulge yourself in the intemperance of what the Chicago Sun-Times calls the "best literary whorehouse in Chicago." Libations, comestibles and private readings available all night!

http://www.chicagopoetrybrothel.com/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chicago Poetry Brothel in the News!

Emily Wong, Gapers Block, writes about the recent Aug. and upcoming Oct. 21 poetry brothel:
http://www.gapersblock.com/bookclub/2011/08/15/modern_poetry_goes_victorian_the_chicago_poetry_brothel/

The Associated Press joined us in May for a video essay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9VGsb_3JWM

Chicago Magazine visited in March for a lovely photo album:
http://www.chicagomag.com/Radar/Seen-on-the-Scene/March-2011/Weekend-Photos-Chicago-Poetry-Brothel-at-the-House-of-Blues/

AND we hope you’ll join us on Oct. 21!

xxx
Madam, Black-eyed Susan

2011-08-03T15:10:00.003-05:00

theG O O D E V E N I N G readingseries

presents:

Stephen James Dvorak,

Joseph Mains,

Ashley Toliver

Friday, August 19

7:00-7:30, Open Mic

7:45p.m., Features

/ / /

B Y O B

/ / /

M E S S H A L L

6932 N. Glenwood Ave.

in Rogers Park

/ / / /

S T E V E N J A M E S D V O R A K has the strength of 100 men. He has an MFA from the University of Miami and works as a shipping clerk in Chicago.

J O S E P H M A I N S received his MFA from The University of Arizona, where he served as Chief Poetry Editor of Sonora Review. He is the author of the chapbooks To Live Don's Life: A Film in 15 Creams, and Poum Poum Tralala. His work appears in Forklift, Ohio, Cream City Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Front Porch, Shampoo, Spork, and Poor Claudia, among others. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where, along with Zachary Schomburg and Drew Swenhaugen, he co-curates the reading series Bad Blood.

A S H L E Y T O L I V E R’s recent work can be found in Caketrain, elimae, DIAGRAM and Third Coast journals. She has received fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. Until 5 days ago, she lived and worked in Portland, Oregon. Now, she’s driving across the country to Providence, RI where she will be studying in the graduate Literary Arts program at Brown University.

new from dancing girl press

2011-07-21T22:49:00.003-05:00

Small Hollering
Jamie Kazay
dancing girl press, 2011
$7.00
order here

Jamie Kazay was born in Hollywood, and grew-up in Pasadena, California. She relocated to Chicago for graduate school in 2005. She holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from California State University, Northridge and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia College, where she teaches writing. Her poems have appeared in Northridge Review, Wicked Alice, Columbia Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She is the Development Manager at Alcuin Montessori School, and enjoys researching Virginia Woolf.

from Harriet:

2011-07-20T14:12:00.003-05:00

UC Press suspends New California Poetry series

By Harriet Staff

In the real sad news category: due to cutbacks, as the Los Angeles Times’ Jacket Copy reports, University of California Press has decided to suspend the publication of its poetry book series New California Poetry. It seems the press will lose about 10% of direct funding from the University of California. The new director, Alison Mudditt, also blames structural changes in the book industry, and the difficulty inherent in publishing academic books. UC Press had one surprise hit last year, the 738-page Autobiography of Mark Twain, “[b]ut one bestseller — and its sequels, with any luck — cannot forge an entire press.” As for the poetry series:

The books in the “New California Poetry” series, Mudditt explains, frequently find a limited audience. “Most titles sell around 1,000 copies,” she wrote, emphasizing that the series “requires substantial support.”

“They have been wonderfully committed to poetry,” Forrest Gander of Brown University told the Chronicle of [Higher] Education’s PageView blog. “They haven’t been making money on the series, anyway. And they have allowed the editors to choose work based on the quality of the work and not on the potential for sales, which is a big deal.” Gander has served as one of four editors on the series, which launched in 2000; it has published 33 titles by 25 poets.

The series has received plenty of acclaim, and sometimes critical attention has created momentum for a title. “Sleeping with the Dictionary” by Harryette Mullen won the National Book Award and sold about 15 times more than the average “New California Poetry” collection.

UC Press will publish three titles in the series in 2012 and, though it is not currently reviewing manuscripts for 2013, it is working to secure the kind of funding it would take to relaunch the series in the future.

Many of the books in the UC Press New California Poetry series have created lasting impressions. Right off, those by Brian Blanchfield, Laura Mullen, Lisa Robertson, Geoffrey G. O’Brien, Fanny Howe, Brian Teare, Ron Silliman, Juliana Spahr, Keith Waldrop, and Leslie Scalapino come to mind. And along the lines of what Gander noted, it’s certain that university press support of this kind for young, experimental writers is almost unmatched. Here’s hoping for a relaunch!

July 29

2011-07-19T12:19:00.002-05:00

http://www.printersball.org/

Chicago Poetry Brothel Aug. 6 2011

2011-07-07T10:53:00.005-05:00

Next Show at Thalia Hall ! ! August 6 at Ristorante al Teatro, 1227 W 18th St, 8pm to Midnight $5 if dressed Victorian. $10 if not.

Join our poets, performers, and fortune tellers as they burn up Chicago's historic Pilsen neighborhood once again. Indulge yourself in the intermperances of what the Chicago Sun-Times calls the "best literary whorehouse in Chicago", as we celebrate Chicago's Saints & Sinners! Libations and comestibles available all night!

Musical guests: Jeffrey Levin & the Sisters of Sin on Piano, and The White City Rippers!Special guest classic burlesque performer, Pearl Pistol - - - keeping the Victorian dream alive since 1890! All the usual rogues will be there.... will you?

If you missed our previous show on April 30 at Thalia Hall, you missed a lot! Writers dressed in Victorian-era costumes reading lovelorn poetry in a bordello-style setting. A stage show of enough splendor to match the startling grandeur of the Thalia Hall itself — whiskey, vaudeville, dancers, fortune tellers, and of course Poetry Whores! — Cabaret singer-songwriter Sabrina Chap from N.Y.C., and our darling dancer Lula Houp-Garou.

The Associated Press was there. Watch their video at the New Zealand Herald !!

2011-06-07T13:13:00.004-05:00

POETRY READING: POETS EMBODYING ABSTRACTION

Sunday, June 19, 2011 / 2:00 p.m.
Guest Curator: Lisa Fishman

Woman Made Gallery
685 N MILWAUKEE AVE

CHICAGO IL 60642

Featured Readers:

Benicia Blue
Judith Goldman
Kristin Ravel
Nicole Wilson
Lisa Fishman

Free & open to the public.

2011-05-19T10:40:00.002-05:00

the G O O D

E V E N I N G readingseries

presents:

ARIELLE GREENBERG

¯ a farewell reading¯

Friday, May 20

Open Mic: 7:15-7:45p.m.

Feature : 8:00p.m.

M E S S H A L L

6932 N. Glenwood Ave.

in Rogers Park

____________

B Y O B

A R I E L L E G R E E N B E R G is co-author, with Rachel Zucker, of Home/Birth: A Poemic, and author of My Kafka Century, Given and several chapbooks. Ugly Duckling Presse will republish her chapbook Shake Her in 2012. She is co-editor of three anthologies, most recently Gurlesque with Lara Glenum, and is the founder-moderator of the poet-moms listserv. She is leaving a tenured position in poetry at Columbia College Chicago in 2011 to move with her family to live a different kind of life in a small town in rural Maine.

SPRING Arsenic Lobster is ALIVE

2011-05-03T10:26:00.004-05:00

The SPRING Arsenic Lobster is ALIVE with poetry! (So what if I’m a couple days late. Here in Chicago, we don’t even have leaves on the trees yet!) http://arseniclobster.magere.com/index.html

With poetry selections from COLUMBIA COLLEGE CHICAGO, MFA student, Jessica Dyer! Plus Simon Perchik, Karrie Waarala, Dennis Mahagin and more! MORE!

INCLUDING--

!!Arlene Ang’s MUST READ BOOK – Seeing Birds in Church is a Kind of Adieu – reviewed by Moira Richards!! http://arseniclobster.magere.com/1review.html

Please also note --

The Arsenic Lobster will be taking a brief poetry submission hiatus between our Spring and Summer issues. This is our first submission hiatus since we began editing in 2005. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for understanding.

Submissions for book reviews will still be read during this time.

Enjoy the spring issue! We are hard at work putting together the 2011 anthology due out this July! And we look forward to our August issue!

Spread the word!
Susan Yount, Editor & Publisher
Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal
http://arseniclobster.magere.com/index.html

Madam of the Chicago Poetry Brothel
http://www.chicagopoetrybrothel.com/

Chicago Poetry Brothel : Poezie Comique

2011-04-08T13:28:00.007-05:00

Our true intent is all for your delight.

The Chicago Poetry Brothel Celebrates Chicago's Victorian past at historic Thalia Hall, 1227 W 18th St Chicago, 8pm-12am ($7 Valet and just blocks from the Pink Line)

Come for PRIVATE poetry readings with the poetry whores of "Chicago's best literary whorehouse" according to the Sun-Times and see for yourself! http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/4014829-417/chicago-poetry-brothel-mixes-verse-burlesque-dancers-and-fortune-tellers.html

Enjoy delicacies by Ristorante Al Teatro: http://www.alteatro.us/index/pages/index.html

Make reservations for a full dinner before the show or enjoy the $10 fire roasted pizza special all night at the bar!

Don’t miss our beauty of burlesque Lula Houp-Garou & special guest, cabaret singer-songwriter & editor of the anthology Live Through This, Sabrina Chap from NYC!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy5XhI7evgg --Sabrina on piano!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGPIhhkavUc ---Sabrina on Live Through This! A visceral look at the bizarre entanglement of destructive and creative forces, Live Through This is a collection of original stories, essays, artwork, and photography. It explores the use of art to survive abuse, incest, madness and depression, and the often deep-seated impulse toward self-destruction including cutting, eating disorders, and addiction.

Come hungry, thirsty and ready for discussion plus adventure! We're certain you'll want a tour of the historic theatre before renovation begins this August.

$5 if dressed Victorian $10 if not.

Visit http://www.chicagopoetrybrothel.com/ for more information.

2011-04-04T10:34:00.000-05:00

InDigest Issue 20 Call for Submissions

2011-03-18T20:02:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers,

We wanted to drop you a quick note about a few exciting things we're dispatching from the InDigest offices.

First, we're only a couple weeks from the end of the submission period of issue 20 of InDigest. Maybe you've got something you'd like to be in there. Send us your words, and we will read them.

O! Have you seen all the awesome events we've got coming up? Well, let me tell you....

This Saturday in New York we're a part of a benefit for Long Island Food Not Bombs. The event is called The InDigest WikiLeaks Centos and more benefit, and we'll be reading - you guessed it - WikiLeaks Centos from the e-book we published in the last issue. It's a $10 suggested donation, 6pm, at the Brooklyn Lyceum. The event will include readings from Evan Commander, Ashleigh Lambert, Ricardo Maldonado, Dustin Luke Nelson, Elsbeth Pancrazi, and readings of poems by Burmese poet Aung Way by Amy Bonnaffoons and Ye Taik. More info here.

Then on Sunday we've got our monthly InDigest 1207 Reading Series. This month we're featuring poets Melissa Broder (When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother), Nathan Hoks (Reveilles), and Jena Osman (The Network), as well as novelist Laird Hunt (Ray of the Star). The reading is taking place at The Gallery at Le Poisson Rouge, and it's free, and there will be drinks, and there will be friends, and it will be good.

We've also just announced a party we're throwing to celebrate Vladimir Nabokov's 112th Birthday in April. It's going to be a good time. Lots of writers debuting new pieces about Nabokov, maybe a little something about butterflies, some cake, Kubrick's Lolita, and a monkeypile of fun.

Don't forget to read issue 19.

Don't forget we love you.
Dustin, David, and the InDigestions

Super Arrow 4 Call For Submissions

2011-03-18T18:56:00.002-05:00

Dear Writers & Artists All Sorts,

We write to you from a sunny place, where though the branches are yet bare, our legs may be similarly and comfortably unsheathed. We invite you to help celebrate this heady end of hibernation season by submitting your writing and art to Super Arrow.

We are looking for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as any cross-genre sally-forths – make your words count, and your notions rich, your formal methods as carefully wrought as the content they envelop. We like the dad-joke funny and the unpredictably poignant as well as great beauty and confident homeliness; we like loyalty to sonic texture and a lashing-to of tension and motion; we like lots of things un-listable here and this can be best understood by reading the current and past issues in the archive at superarrow.org.

We are also looking for serious visual and audio work. We like to present work which is stand-alone, rather than illustrative, and which holds within it some conceptual affinity to ideas of creative experimentation and process. In the past, we’ve published drawings, collage, installation work, improvisational sound collaboration, and photography. Super Arrow is interested in sustaining an interdisciplinary venue; help us, oh artist types, in doing this.

LASTLY, and not LEASTLY, our Issue Four Assignment Folio concerns the idea of persona in all sorts of work. Send us work you made that was somehow made, you feel, by other people. We do not state it this way to be difficult or abstract. Ideas of identity and maker-ship are shifty…What new people must we make up in order to invent new artistic approaches? See http://www.superarrow.org/Assignment.html for more details, and stay tuned to the blog for more in our Chatbot Series, as vaguely fictionalized versions of our editorial staff try to discuss the concept of PERSONA with artificially intelligent beings, to mixed success.

We’ll be accepting submissions through Tax Day, April 15, 2011, midnight for the submitter’s time zone, through our Submishmash manager. As always, we’d be so pleased if you would forward this to any of your creative compatriots, or post this call on your blog, Facebook or Twitter accounts. (Also, don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter, to stay best abreast of news and future calls!)

Yours in Creative Experiment and Impatient Thermometer Watching,
Super Arrow

Beyond what is required.
www.superarrow.org
superarrow.blogspot.com

Chicago Poetry Brothel Explores Seamy Poetry

2011-02-17T10:53:00.005-06:00

SAT March 05 2011
Drop everything & come!

The Chicago Poetry Brothel Explores the Seamy Side of Poetry.

Come for the most enjoyment you ever had in a bordello! A stage show of enough splendor to match the startling grandeur of the Foundation Room itself—floods of love-lorn poetry whores, whiskey, vaudeville, dancers, fortune tellers— Pinch and Squeal out of Cleveland, OH & Chicago's darling Lula Houp-Garou!

Doors open at 8pm $5 if dressed Victorian $10 if not.

Never been to a Chicago Poetry Brothel? Here is a taste of what you've been missing--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvykwKIS_dA

BE THERE!

Want to learn more? Check out Chicago poetry whore and author Kathleen Rooney's essay and podcast over at the Poetry Foundation:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=241004 : Essay
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/audioitem.html?id=2788 : Podcast

See you soon!

Spring 2011 POETRY Reading Series

2011-02-07T11:58:00.004-06:00

John Beer & Julie Carr

Sherwood Conservatory Recital Hall

1312 S. Michigan Avenue

Wednesday, February 9^th, 5:30p.m.

Sat. 15 Jan 2011 The Chicago Poetry Brothel Presents:

2011-01-03T10:46:00.004-06:00

Dangerous Amusements at the House of Blues. The Brilliant Entrance to the Underworld Itself—Doors open at 8 pm.

Young girls who have danced a little are attracted by the blazing light, gaiety and apparent happiness of the ‘parlor games’ which, in many instances, leads to their downfall. Young men have little idea just how wicked the scantily attired Poetry Whores are with their honeyed-up poems. There is no turning away now, join us for a night of dangerous amusements, poetry mad libs and charades. $5 if dressed Victorian. $10 if not.

Never been to a poetry brothel? Here is a taste of what you’ve been missing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvykwKIS_dA

Kind Poets, Send Me Your News!

2010-12-15T14:23:00.005-06:00

Dear Students & Alumni of Columbia's B. A. & MFA Poetry Programs,

I would like to send a semi-regular (maybe twice a month) "round-up" of student and alumni news because I know yer all publishing regularly and as much as I try to keep up with everything, I just can't. But I want to!

Whenever you get something published, or if you have other writing-related news, do send me a sentence or two letting me know (nwilson@colum.edu) and I'll be sure to include it in the regular-round-up-announcement-newsletter thing.

Yer the best,
Nicole W. (MFA '08)
Assistant Director, Poetry Program

5th Annual Minds of Winter Student Reading:

2010-12-06T16:05:00.004-06:00

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

4:30pm

Graduate Lounge, Room 404

33 East Congress

Featuring:

Sarah Jedd

Zachary Green

Kayla Sargeson

Nathan Masters

Jessica Dyer

Vote for Morton Grove Public Library

2010-11-08T14:59:00.002-06:00

Hey everybody!

I'm working at the Morton Grove Public Library in Morton Grove, IL. We're in the running to win $10,000, but we need your help!

Please visit this link and enter your e-mail address to vote: http://vote.playaway.com/v/mortongrove/. It's one vote per e-mail address, and the company that's sponsoring the contest has sworn that it won't send you a single email.

The contest is supported by Playaway, a company that makes really cool lightweight audio books on mp3 players you can purchase or check out from the library. They're worth checking out.

We made a Playaway display at the library and sent the company photos. We're in the top 10 in the nation! Check out the photos -- they're really funny.

Thanks for your help! One vote per email, so feel free to vote with each of your e-mail accounts. And pass this along to friends!

Voting runs till December 17.

Thanks, Kate

The Chicago Poetry Brothel Presents: Scandalous, Bedizened Vice and Verse!

2010-10-18T14:41:00.010-05:00

Don’t Miss the

Chicago Poetry Brothel’s

last event of the year,

Nov. 5, 2010:
Scandalous, Bedizened

Vice and Verse!
House of Blues Foundation Room, doors open at 8pm
21+ $5 if dressed Victorian.

$10 if not.

Featuring Columbia College Recent MFA’s in Poetry
Izzy Oneiric as Pearl du Mal
Kenyatta Rogers as Durham Pure
Jamie Kazay as Woodland Doll
Jennifer Steele as Serafine LaCroix

& Current MFA Poetry Student
Susan Yount as the Madame Black-eyed Susan

PLUS MORE CHICAGO Favorites:
Kathleen Rooney as Vivian Nightwood
Susan Slaviero as August Rose
Sara Tracey as The Factory Girl
Britte Anchor as Calliope Bell

The Poetry Brothel is a troupe of poets and performers who play various roles that might be found in a late 19th Century Victorian brothel. During this romantic period of history, poetry writing and reading were much more of a common, intimate and personal activity than they are today; now poetry readings are encountered primarily in academic and coffee house settings, and as a result, the personal interplay between poets and their audience is minimal. The Poetry Brothel provides a venue in which visitors, or “patrons,” who may consider themselves neophytes to poetry, have the opportunity to experience poetry in an intimate and romantic environment through one-on-one poetry readings with professional poets.

an evening with dancing girl press

2010-10-11T02:43:00.001-05:00

with readings by Naomi Buck Palagi, Sara Tracey, Jamie Kazay, Susan Slaviero, Kristy Bowen & more...

friday, october 15th, 7pm
potbelly sandwich shop
55 e. jackson (jackson & wabash)

Dolly Lemke's poems in Umbrella Factory

2010-09-16T11:13:00.004-05:00

Dolly Lemke has new poems published in Denver-based Umbrella Factory. Check 'em out! Poems also forthcoming in Horse Less Review #8 this fall (http://www.horselesspress.com/).

Chicago Poetry Brothel: Presents Seeds of Sin

2010-09-04T20:28:00.003-05:00

Join Columbia College Past and Present students: Kenyatta Rogers, Jamie Kazay, Jennifer Steele & Susan Yount

PLUS! other Chicago favorites, Kathleen Rooney, Susan Slaviero & Sara Tracey for a night of poetry seduction.

Sept 24, in the Foundation Room at the House of Blues. Doors open at 8pm.

Chicago Poetry Brothel

2010-07-14T08:29:00.004-05:00

Herewith a dreamlike take on the July 10, 2010 poetry reading featuring CCC students past and present-- Jennifer Steele, Jamie Kazay & Susan Yount working as poetry whores along with a cast of gypies, fortune-tellers, burlesque dancers and more.

Click on "Chicago Poetry Brothel" in the above title for a photo journey of the House of Blues event at Time Out Chicago! Enjoy!

Shannon Cain's Online Fiction Workshops!

2010-07-06T20:02:00.002-05:00

Summer/Fall 2010 Online Postgraduate Workshops in Fiction

WORKSHOP LEADER

SHANNON CAIN’s fiction has received the Pushcart Prize, the O. Henry Prize and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tin House, The Massachusetts Review, the New England Review and American Short Fiction. Shannon earned her MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She is the co-editor, with Lisa Bowden, of Powder: Writing by Women in the Ranks, from Vietnam to Iraq (Kore Press, 2008). Shannon has taught fiction writing at the University of Arizona, Gotham Writers’ Workshop, UCLA Extension, Arizona State University and as a private coach and workshop facilitator. She lives in downtown Tucson, Arizona and is the fiction editor for Kore Press. Her current project is Tucson, the Novel: An Experiment in Literature and Civil Discourse.

Workshops are six weeks in length, non-synchronous, and organized in a bulletin board format. Each week, three participants post their stories for review and commentary by Shannon and the group. In the final half of the workshop, we will be joined by a guest co-leader. Each participant will have the opportunity to have one story or chapter workshopped by our guest.

Register early: groups are limited to 9 participants. MFA or equivalent* required.
* writers without MFAs are accepted very selectively. Email Shannon for details.

Browse a sample workshop, learn more, and contact Shannon here.

Columbia Grads in Bone Bouquet

2010-07-01T22:35:00.002-05:00

Kristy Bowen and Kate Dougherty have poems published in the second issue of Bone Bouquet: An Online Journal of Women's Poetry.

In the announcement that Editor Krystal Languell mailed out, she noted that Bone Bouquet will begin reading unsolicited submissions in August 2010. Women, submit!

2010-06-30T14:45:00.003-05:00

Quimby's Bookstore

1854 W. North Avenue

A Poetry Reading:

Nicole Wilson

Kate Dougherty

Patrick Culliton

July 6, 2010

7:00p.m.

Octopus Books

2010-05-12T09:57:00.003-05:00

Undergraduate

& Graduate

Poetry Student Showcases

Poetry Readings by Graduating Students

& winners of the Lannan & Elma Stuckey Poetry Awards

______

Great Room | 525 S State St | Floor 3

11:00-12:30p.m. B. A. Graduates

1:00-3:00p.m. MFA Graduates

3:00p.m. Hors d’oeuvres Reception

________

And be sure to participate in some fun poem-making activities at this year’s Po-Tent from 12-6p.m.

at the corner of Balbo & Wabash, coordinated by first-year MFA poetry students.

THE SPRING ISSUE OF ARSENIC LOBSTER!

2010-04-29T09:28:00.005-05:00

THE SPRING ISSUE OF ARSENIC LOBSTER!
(Hey, spring comes late here in Chicago.)

With new poetry from
Jean Hollander! Arlene Ang! Daniel Robbins! Meg Reilly and many MORE!
THIS IS OUR BIGGEST ONLINE ISSUE YET!
http://arseniclobster.magere.com/index.html

AND!
Our very own Lissa Kiernan reviews JULIET COOK’S icing-sweet grotesquerie, Fondant Pig Angst (Slash Pine Press).
http://arseniclobster.magere.com/1review.html

As an added bonus— you can now order back issues via PAY PAL!
http://arseniclobster.magere.com/archive/order/index.html

Cheers!
Susan Yount, Editor & Publisher
Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal

--as a personal plug: Come and hear me read at the Poetry Center’s 16th Annual Juried Reading & Award Ceremony :

Wednesday, May 19, 2010 - 7:30pm

SAIC Ballroom, 112 S. Michigan Avenue
http://www.poetrycenter.org/?q=node/1336

Hope to see you there!
Sus

Dougherty publications

2010-04-17T18:39:00.003-05:00

Hey friends,

I've got work in The Carolina Quarterly's current issue, and my dog Moose is on the cover. (Well, it's not actually Moose. But it looks just like him.)

New work also appears in the always beautifully handmade Cannibal 5.

Cannibal: Issue 5
112 pages, hand-sewn, silk-screen printed cover
w/ poems Carrie Olivia Adams, Samuel Amadon, Claire Becker, Susan Briante, Lily Brown, Adam Clay, CAConrad, Kate Dougherty, Farrah Field, Laura Goode, Kate Greenstreet, Jane Gregory, Whit Griffin, Melanie Hubbard, Andrew Hughes, MC Hyland, Grant Jenkins, Jeff T. Johnson, Jon Leon, Sam Lohmann, Sara Mumulo, Hoa Nguyen, Danielle Pafunda, Alison Palmer, Kyle Schlesinger, Cedar Sigo, Nate Slawson, Tony Tost, Steven Toussaint, Amish Trivedi, G.C. Waldrep, & Joseph Wood.

3rd Annual Columbia College Library Haiku Contest

2010-04-15T15:34:00.004-05:00

All currently enrolled Columbia College students are invited to submit up to three haiku exploring themes relevant to the following topics: libraries, knowledge, learning, books, literacy and reading. Entries will be judged by a panel of library staff and English Department faculty. The winning entry will be displayed prominently in the Library during Manifest Week and beyond.

Please send all submissions via e-mail to kbowen@colum.edu by 9pm on Monday, April 26th.

2010-03-24T10:28:00.000-05:00

Columbia College Chicago
Ferguson Hall
600 S. Michigan
April 1
5:30p.m.

Becca Klaver’s (MFA '07) "probing meditations and acerbic wit" now available from Kore Press:

2010-03-12T16:24:00.004-06:00

POETRY ALUMNI:SEND NEWS

2010-02-05T12:05:00.002-06:00

The English Department at Columbia College Chicago is preparing its annual newsletter, Ampersand, and we want to brag about you!

If you’d like to be included in the alumni section of the newsletter, please send updates featuring publications, awards, professional pursuits, continuing education, exhibits, or anything you would like the Columbia College community and its affiliates to know about you. Also, be sure to include your current mailing address and we’ll send you a copy of the completed newsletter.

Updates should be sent to Nicole Wilson at nwilson@colum.edu.

The deadline for entries is Monday, February 15^th. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to include any entries received after February 15^th, but you can always post your latest news on this blog.

Thanks!

FOLDED & MIRRENED

2010-01-29T11:30:00.007-06:00

Congratulations to Kristen Orser (MFA '08) & Andrew Terhune (MFA '09) who have new chapbooks out from Greying Ghost Press.

You'll be delighted by what you find in these two books. Order them, read them, pass them to friends, ask for them back, and read them again!

Better yet, tell your friends to buy their own copies.

Go here to read a review written by Adam Fieled of Kristen's chapbook.

Write on!

MAD CONGRATS!

2010-01-07T11:30:00.005-06:00

DOLLY LEMKE's poem "I never went to that movie at 12:45" was selected for publication in Best American Poetry 2010 by Amy Gerstler. The poem was originally published in Columbia Poetry Review 22.

CONGRATULATIONS DOLLY!!!!

(Check out more of Dolly's work in the fall 2009 issue of Wicked Alice.)

2009-12-28T21:03:00.002-06:00

The winter issue of Arsenic Lobster has arrived:
http://arseniclobster.mager.com/

With new poetry from CCC grad Kenyatta Rogers!
And many more...

Go read some poetry!
Susan Yount, Editor & Publisher
Arsenic Lobster Poetry Journal

2009-12-04T10:23:00.001-06:00

ROCKBOX POETRY JAM
Poetry's Once Monthly Late Night Home

Featured Readers include: John-Franklin Dandridge, Matt Anderson, and a mystery third!

Open Mic to follow

Monday, December 7th, 2009
2624 N Lincoln Avenue
9:30 PM - 4 AM
$3 Drafts, $4 Jameson shots

The Rockbox Poetry Jam is the brainchild of Subterranean's Narciso Lobo and Columbia College's Joe Bly. This reading series and open mic were designed to incorporate the poetry of past and present in an informal conversational setting. We ask our features and open mic poets to indulge us in their own work along with the works that give them inspiration. This "return to sender" style of reading keeps us grounded in the resounding enjoyment of all poetry and enlightens us with the forthcoming work of our peers. Please join us for drinks, music, and convivial discussion!

Love,

Joe and The Rockbox

Mad Girls' Love Songs

2009-11-22T22:13:00.003-06:00

If you have access to Project Muse, you can read the article on Sylvia Plath and teenage girls -- "Mad Girls’ Love Songs: Two Women Poets—a Professor and Graduate Student—Discuss Sylvia Plath, Angst, and the Poetics of Female Adolescence" -- that (Poetry faculty member) Arielle Greenberg and I (MFA '07) wrote.

If you don't have access and want to read it, email me! beccavista[at]yahoo[dot]com

Here's the abstract:

The legacy of Sylvia Plath’s poetry and the received notion of the teenage girl writer wallowing in self-pity are discussed in terms of their significance to adolescent female readers and their ramifications for girlhood culture at large. Plath’s legacy endures in part because of the recognition that a fluctuation in moods and personas is often the experience of young women, of writers, of those who struggle with depression or anxiety (and the overlap between these populations), and also because of Plath’s ability to craft the fever of her emotions into poems that rely on bold and rich figurative language. This essay uses memoir, a survey of Plath’s popular and critical reception, and a close reading of Plath poems that take on more adolescent concerns and themes, then concludes by looking at contemporary women poets whose aesthetics, attitudes and themes are relevant to contemporary teenage girl readers.

2009-10-09T11:01:00.005-05:00

Columbia College Chicago

brings you a special event
in conjunction w/

Elbowing off the Stage:

A Reading Featuring

Columbia College Chicago

POETRY FACULTY:

Jenny Boully, Sandra Lim, James Shea,

Tony Trigilio & David Trinidad

*Thank you to MFA Poetry Students Hafizah Geter

& Dolly Lemke for curating this reading!*

Monday, October 12th 7:00 p.m.
Three Peas Art Lounge

75 E 16th St.

(312) 624-9414

A Few Blocks away from the Roosevelt Orange/Green/Red CTA Lines

SAVE THE DATE: Monday, November 16th, 7p.m., Elbowing off the Stage returns to Manhattan's!

CATHERINE BOWMAN READING

2009-09-29T15:29:00.002-05:00

Wednesday, October 7
5:30PM
Music Center Concert Hall
1014 South Michigan Avenue

CATHERINE BOWMAN was born in El Paso, Texas. She is the author of the poetry collections The Plath Cabinet, Notarikon, Rock Farm, and 1-800-HOT-RIBS, winner of the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize and the Kate Frost Tufts Prize. She is the editor of Word of Mouth: Poems Featured on NPR's All Things Considered. Her poems have been published in many literary journals and magazines, and have been selected for six editions of The Best American Poetry anthology. She is the Ruth Lilly Professor of Poetry at Indiana University in Bloomington.

This event is free and open to the public and is presented in conjunction with David Trinidad’s fall graduate literature seminar on Sylvia Plath. For more information, call 312.369.8819.

RHINO READING: TRIGILIO & LIM

2009-09-18T10:10:00.000-05:00

Bros. K Poetry Series!

A Monthly feature of RHINO

September 25, 2009

FRIDAY

Open Mike 6:00 - 6:30

Featured Poets 6:45 - 7:30

Brothers K

500 Main St.

Evanston, IL

Featuring:

Sandra Lim's first book, Loveliest Grotesque, was published in 2006. Her poetry has appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, Boston Review, and other journals. She is the recipient of a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, a Soul Mountain Fellowship, and a 2006 Pushcart Prize nomination. She has taught at UC Berkeley, the Univ. of Iowa, and Saint Mary's College of California.

Tony Trigilio's recent books include the poetry collection The Lama's English Lessons, and the chapbook, With the Memory, Which is Enormous. With Tim Prchal, he co-edited Visions and Divisions: American Immigration Literature, 1870-1930. He teaches at Columbia College Chicago, where he also co-edits the poetry journal Court Green.

To order RHINO 2009, use PayPal, via our website:

www.rhinopoetry.org

O SAY CAN YOU SEE Nonverbal Reviews and Adaptations of Women's Poetry

2009-09-10T09:28:00.001-05:00

*Abi Stokes (current BA) collages Matthea Harvey

*Tyler Flynn Dorholt (MFA '09) splices Sandy Florian, Joyelle McSweeney, Laura Solórzano, and Kim Hyesoon

*Jennifer Karmin street teams Kristin Prevallet

*Daniela Olszewska (BA '08) puts a bow on Chelsey Minnis

*Christine Neacole Kanownik horses around with Jennifer Scappettone

*Janet Snell goes Dickinson on Nanette Rayman-Rivera

Curated by K. Lorraine Graham and Becca Klaver (MFA '07) for DELIRIOUS HEM

What book, chapbook, performance, or poem by a woman poet published/presented in the last year or two has left you speechless? How might that speechlessness manifest itself visually, sonically, or through another nonverbal medium?

Rolling submissions through September 20.

2009-09-07T15:14:00.006-05:00

Congratulations to current MFA student Susan Yount whose chapbook House on Fire was chosen as one of five winners in the 2009-2010 Tilt Press chapbook series!

Some of Susan's work can be found on Verse Daily, in blossombones, in The One Three Eight, and elsewhere.

She is also the dedicated editor of the journal Arsenic Lobster.

Mad props M'lady!

HYDE PARK ART CENTER FREE POETRY WORKSHOP

2009-08-24T10:31:00.002-05:00

Sunday, Sept 13
3-5 p.m.

This month the Hyde Park Art Center features a free poetry writing workshop from Valerie Wallace. Explore the galleries of the Hyde Park Art Center to write poems inspired by visual art and artists & come prepared with a desire to share your work in a collaborative, stimulating environment.

The workshop is part of the "Fun for All" event & space is limited.

You can reserve a spot by calling 773-324-5520.

The workshop is made possible with support from Poets and Writers.

The Danny's Reading Series

2009-08-20T16:12:00.002-05:00

8th Anniversary Reading with Chicago Indie Presses!
Wednesday, August 26th
7:30 PM

The writers: Adam Clay, Kathleen Rooney, Steve Halle, Mary Hamilton, Kristen Orser (MFA ’08), and Patrick Durgin with Hannah Weiner

The presses: Cinematheque Press, Switchback Books, Cracked Slab Books, Featherproof Books, Dancing Girl Press, and Kenning Editions

Eight years in. It’s hard to believe. While we spend a lot of our time hosting poets and writers from elsewhere, as we venture into our ninth season, we thought it appropriate to turn our eye on our hometown. We’d like to celebrate the work of a selection (there are so many more!) of Chicago indie presses and their authors. Diverse in publishing vision, ideals, and execution—all committed to defining quality for themselves, the imagination, to the vast work on the part of the author to bring it to life, and to the vastly detailed work of bringing it to our hands and eyes—we salute and celebrate the necessary parts all of them play in bringing Chicago to life and the world to light. And, as always, celebrating the audience that gives us life and is our light.

-Joel Craig & Chris Glomski

Adam Clay is the author of The Wash (Parlor Press, 2006) and A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World (Milkweed Editions, forthcoming). A new chapbook, In a World of Ideas, I Feel No Particular Loyalty, is now available from Cinematheque Press (cinemathequepress.com). He co-edits Typo Magazine and lives in Michigan. Recent poems appear in Ploughshares, The Laurel Review, The Tusculum Review, and elsewhere.

Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, and the author, most recently, of the memoir Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object and the poetry collection Oneiromance (an epithalamion), winner of the Gatewood Prize from Switchback Books. Founded in 2006, Switchback (Founding Editors Brandi Homan, Becca Klaver, and Hanna Andrews MFA ’07) is a nonprofit feminist press publishing poetry by women (switchbackbooks.com).

Steve Halle's first collection of poems, Map of the Hydrogen World was published by Cracked Slab Books in 2008 (crackedslabbooks.com). Halle edits the online journal Seven Corners, which publishes Chicago and Midwestern poets, and he is a staff poetry reviewer for Oranges & Sardines (O&S). He holds an MFA from New England College and is currently a PhD candidate at Illinois State University.

Mary Hamilton has had stories in SmokeLong Quarterly, Wigleaf, Storyglossia, Thieves JargonFlash Flicker Fire, available from Featherproof Books. She lives in Chicago where she's the co-founder and co-host of the QUICKIES! reading series. Featherproof Books (featherproof.com) is a young indie publisher based in Chicago, dedicated to the small-press ideals of finding fresh, urban voices.

Kristen Orser (MFA ’08) is the author of Squint, published by Dancing Girl Press. Kristen Orser is anxious. She is probably behind on work and her students are probably wondering what their grades are. She is hoping all clocks will bend backwards and take her somewhere less fast. The Dancing Girl Press Chapbook Series was founded (Kristy Bowen MFA ’07) in 2004 to publish and promote the work of women poets and artists through chapbooks, journals, book arts projects, and anthologies. (dancinggirlpress.com)

Patrick Durgin is a poet, critic, editor, publisher, and educator. His latest book is a collaboration with poet and translator Jen Hofer, The Route (Atelos, 2008). He edited the selected works of Hannah Weiner, Hannah Weiner's Open House, for Kenning Editions (kenningeditions.com), of which he is the founder and publisher. Weiner (1928-1997) was an influential poet whose work bridged conceptual, intermedia, New York School, and Language school poetics. Her books include The Fast, We Speak Silent, and PAGE.

Danny’s Tavern is located at 1951 W. Dickens (near the intersection of Armitage and Damen).

21+ (please have ID)

773-489-6457

O Say Can You See: DEADLINE EXTENDED to August 20!

2009-08-09T16:08:00.000-05:00

========================================
O SAY CAN YOU SEE:
Nonverbal Reviews and Adaptations of Women's Poetry
========================================

***Deadline extended to August 2o!***

Mina Loy, Surreal Scene, n.d. Collage on painted background, 12 5/8 x 9 1/2 in.
Courtesy of the Jean Farley Levy Estate © Estate of Mina Loy.

What book, chapbook, performance, or poem by a woman poet published/presented in the last year or two has left you speechless? How might that speechlessness manifest itself visually, sonically, or through another nonverbal medium?

Please create a response to this piece; your response can act like a review, adaptation, homage, investigation, companion piece, Frankenstein, child, or any mash-up of the aforementioned. In August, all responses submitted will be featured as part of a forum on Delirious Hem.

Curated by K. Lorraine Graham and Becca Klaver.

FAQ

Are all words banned?
Although the projects should not be text-based, words are not banned.

I want to create a response to a poem published in 2007. Is this too early?
Nope. We mean "published in the last year or two" loosely.

Can I create a response to a book written by:
a) a man?
b) a biological male who identifies as a woman?
c) a drag queen?
a) No. b) Yes. c) Yes, if they self-identify as a woman.

Can non-Pussipo members participate?
Yes. If you'd like to forward this call, feel free.

Can men participate?
Yes.

What file formats can you accept?
For videos, Blogger can accept AVI, MPEG, QuickTime, Real, and Windows Media, 100 MB maximum size. For images, jpg, gif, bmp and png images, 8 MB maximum size.

Responses might include videos, songs, performances, photographs, or photographs of visual pieces, but are not limited to these, so please query if you're not sure if Blogger can support your format.

Questions, submissions, stating your interest: Please contact K. Lorraine Graham (klorraine[at]gmail[dot]com) and Becca Klaver (beccavista[at]yahoo[dot]com).

Due date for submissions: August 20, 2009.

Please feel free to forward this call!

2009-08-01T16:37:00.009-05:00

Congratulations to Kristen Orser whose chapbook Squint is now available from dancing girl press!

You should get yerself one.

Kristen blogs at Pity Reached by Sound, so stop in if you feel like visiting.

(Teaser: she'll be featured at the next Elbowing off the Stage--details coming soon.)

Becca Klaver's FIRST BOOK--Los Angeles Liminal !!!

2009-07-24T10:54:00.003-05:00

Couldn't be happier to share that CCC MFA Alum and general all-round-rock-star Becca Klaver's first book, Los Angeles Liminal, has been accepted for publication by Kore Press!!!!!

Please visit Bex at El Pomo Expo and tell her congrats!

I MEAN NOW!!!

POETRY STUDENT PUBLICATION NEWS

2009-07-02T15:02:00.005-05:00

Students and alumni! Please email your updates to rklaver[at]colum[dot]edu (or after July 17 to nwilson[at]colum[dot]edu)!

ANDREW TERHUNE (MFA ’09) has poems in the most recent issues of Buffalo Carp and Meridian and poems forthcoming in Eleven Eleven, Another Chicago Magazine, Makeout Creek, and Diagram. His chapbook, Helen Mirren Picks Out My Clothes, is still forthcoming from Greying Ghost. His other chapbook, Handle This Bludgeon and Run Me Through, is available from Tilt Press.

TYLER FLYNN DORHOLT’s (MFA ’09) current work appears in American Letters & Commentary, Denver Quarterly, Qarrtsiluni, Sub-Lit, Front Porch Journal, Action Yes, Octopus, and Zaum; forthcoming work will appear in Zoland Poetry, Eleven Eleven, Dewclaw, and Quarterly West. A chapbook, Dog the Man a Star, is available online at Scantily Clad Press. Read online work at Sub-Lit.

JEFFREY ALLEN, an incoming MFA student, has poems in recent issues of Inscribed:

http://www.inscribed.org/archive/msw/pdf/Vol4Issue5.pdf

http://www.inscribed.org/archive/msw/pdf/Vol4Issue1.pdf

JESSICA DYER, incoming MFA student, published her poem “On Sunday” in Triton College’s journal Ariel, and her poem “Why you should never wear mascara to a funeral” was published on WordSaladPoetryMagazine.com.

MAUREEN EWING (MFA ’09) has an essay (p. 42) in the current issue of Mindful Metropolis (formerly Chicago’s Conscious Choice).

Poetry major ABI STOKES’ Stuckey Award-winning poem, “Ocean Irradiated,” is forthcoming in Eleven Eleven.

Poetry major ERIC UNGER edits string of small machines with Luke Daly, Barrett Gordon and Michael Slosek. Issue 4 is out now. Eric’s chapbook, Bastion, will be out later this summer with House Press.

BURDOCK #6, co-edited by current MFA student DOLLY LEMKE, is bursting with Columbia students and alums, including Dolly, Stevie Curl, Izzy Oneiric, Meg Reilly, Meghan M. Lee, y madrone, Abi Stokes, and Becca Klaver. It also features Switchback poet Peggy Munson!

Current MFA student SUSAN YOUNT has been publishing online, offline, and in anthologies:

“All That It Takes.” One Three Eight (Autumn 2008)
“Socks of Fire” and “Woman/women you/we are not like/unlike a cow/cattle.” blossombones (Jan. 2009)
“Zinnias Yawn or X Means To Dream Of A Treasure Map: 25 titles for poems I wish I could write” Red Headed Step Child, 2009
“All That It Takes” Buffalo Carp, Vol 6, 2009.
“Notes on Desire” Not a Muse: the inner lives of women, a world poetry anthology edited by Kate Rogers & Viki Holmes, Haven Books, 2009.
“Socks of Fire” Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems edited by Vasiliki Katsarou, Ruth O'Toole, and Ellen Foos. Ragged Sky Press, 2009.
“Elementary Catastrophe”, “Ars Catastrophe”, “Swallowtail Catastrophe” and “Butterfly Catastrophe” forthcoming in July & August from Goldfish Press: The World According to Goldfish (Poetry Anthologies) “Volume I - Looking Past” and/or “Volume II- Sight”

Send Me Poems!

2009-06-03T12:58:00.000-05:00

Poetry MFA students and alumni! Please send me:

1) a list of any recent or forthcoming publications (magazines, books, chapbooks); and/or
2) links to said publications online; and/or
3) hard copies of publications for the display case

I’d like to do a blog round-up post, and to rotate the poems in the display case in the third-floor hallway.

Please send your info to rklaver[at]colum[dot]edu by Wednesday, June 17. If you’re not around this summer and want to get me a hard copy, you can mail it to:

Becca Klaver
English Department
Columbia College Chicago
600 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60605

Brandi Homan and Kristy Bowen, Illustrious Members of the Lit 50!

2009-06-03T11:06:00.002-05:00

Brandi Homan and Kristy Bowen (MFAs '07) hit the Newcity Lit 50 : Who Really Books in Chicag o list!

Homan serves as editor-in-chief of local feminist poetry press Switchback Books, which has published books by Jessica Bozek, Marisa Crawford, Peggy Munson and more. Homan’s a poet herself; expect her second full-length collection, titled “Bobcat Country,” in 2010 via Shearsman Books.

Kristy Bowen: The poet, author of last year’s “in the bird museum,” runs dancing girl press & studio, which publishes chapbooks by women poets, plus manages the online literary zine Wicked Alice. Since its foundation in 2004, dancing girl has published more than fifty titles.

Edgewood Arts Fall Residency

2009-06-01T10:22:00.002-05:00

From Emma Lunbeck, Writing Program Director, Edgewood Arts (emma[at]edgewoodarts[dot]org):

Our program invites two writers to live in the Edgewood house, a spacious home across from one of Savannah’s famous parks. Together with our program directors, these writers hold weekly group critiques, supporting and inspiring one another. We also ask our residents to participate as teachers in our Storyboard program, an arts education initiative aimed at Savannah middle school students. Edgewood Arts provides teacher training and tested curricula, so no teaching experience is necessary. The goal of our organization is to encourage young writers to involve themselves in their communities. Our residents become part of the Edgewood collective and they also hone their craft by teaching it to the next generation.

Our Fall Session runs from September 4th to December 18th. We welcome applications in poetry, fiction, screenwriting, playwriting, and creative nonfiction. Our application deadline is July 3rd, 2009. More information and application materials are available on our website at www.edgewoodarts.org. Please forward this email to any of your students who may be interested and let them know about this unique opportunity!

"Sense & Nonsense: A Poetry Workshop" with Becca Klaver

2009-05-27T09:47:00.002-05:00

Saturday, May 30, 2009, 12am-4pm
Woodland Pattern Book Center
720 East Locust Street
Milwaukee, WI 53212

($40/$35 WP Members; includes ticket to 7pm reading)

Call now to register! 414-263-5001

Through a variety of sensory and nonsensical experiments, in this workshop we will explore our relationships to each of the traditional five senses (especially those we take for granted), consider the additional senses that poets rely on (sixth, seventh, seventeenth), examine synesthesia and other sense-related poetic topics, and indulge in nonsense. Experiments may or may not include flâneuring, blindfolds, taste/smell/touch-tests, and speaking in tongues, or in Stein. Participants will be asked to bring a few simple supplies to aid in the experiments, and will use the material generated to compose one or more poems or short texts by the end of the workshop.

Reading & Small Press Focus with Kathleen Rooney, Brandi Homan, Becca Klaver
7pm ($8/$7/$6 or free with workshop attendance)

Here are some other good reasons to come, all within walking distance:
Nessun Dorma
Fuel Cafe
My mom's Tai Chi studio across the street

Brandi Homan on Verse Daily!

2009-05-24T12:43:00.002-05:00

Come One, Come All: Poetry Gladiators Reading

2009-05-16T12:25:00.002-05:00

ELBOWING OFF THE STAGE

2009-05-12T17:15:00.005-05:00

Abi Stokes, y madrone,
& John Murillo

Thursday, May 14
7:30p.m.

1278 North Milwaukee 4W
a few blocks North of Ashland

B Y O B

Note: push the door really hard when you get there!

Abi Stokes is originally from Portland, Oregon. She is a junior in the BA poetry program at Columbia College Chicago. She currently co-edits for Columbia Poetry Review and Elephant Zine. She finds robots irresistibly cute.

y madrone currently writes in Chicago, IL via Olympia, WA via Detroit, MI via Baku, Ahzerbaijan. S/he collects locations to place verbs and find nouns in, enjoys multi-syllabic names and miniature bicycling. Currently s/he is holding the breath for a hot air balloon to lift and land with.

John Murillo is a two-time Larry Neal Writers' Award winner and the 2008-2009 Elma B. Stuckey Visiting Emerging Poet-in-Residence at Columbia College Chicago. His poetry has appeared in such publications as Ploughshares, Ninth Letter, Lumina, and the anthology DC Poets Against the War.

New England College Post-MFA Symposium

2009-05-11T12:49:00.000-05:00

July 6-11, 2009

The New England College Post-MFA Symposium accepts poets & writers with advanced graduate degrees in Creative Writing. The inaugural five-day post-MFA program will concentrate on poetry only (July 6-11, 2009), and then expand to fiction and non-fiction in its second year (Summer, 2010).

With a faculty comprised of eminent poets from both low-residency and residential programs around the country, this symposium offers a diverse program of classes, workshops, presentations, readings, and round table discussions on such topics as the big tent of American poetry, resonant new voices, enduring poetry, on-line courses, submission and publishing advice, and the rigors of the post-MFA writing life.

Thorough manuscript evaluations are also available for participants who wish to pay an extra fee of $600. These critiques involve one-on-one two-hour conferences with a faculty member. In addition to faculty presentations, participants are also welcome to present talks or lectures on relevant topics of poetics and craft. Proposals for these presentations will be assessed in advance of the symposium. Manuscripts must be submitted by June 1st with payment in order to give faculty sufficient time to review up to no more than 60 pages of manuscript material.

On the third day of the symposium, participants and faculty will travel to Lake Sunapee for an afternoon of swimming and writing.

Full information and application details can be found in the Post-MFA Symposium Brochure.

Please contact Chard Deniord, co-founder of New England College MFA in Poetry program, at cdeniord[at]nec[dot]edu for further information.

The Tattoos Have Arrived!

2009-05-01T13:18:00.008-05:00

Come and get 'em!

Poetry Parlor @ Manifest
Friday, May 15, 11:00-6:30
Sculpture Garden, 11th and Wabash
Chicago, IL 60605

Text by Jen Watman (BA '07) from her poem "(an offering)" in Columbia Poetry Review no. 22. Designed by Abi Stokes.

Text by Joy Katz from her poem "When I Look At Architectural Models" in Court Green 6. Designed by Mykhiel Deych.

Columbia Poetry Review no. 22 Reading & Release!

2009-04-29T10:29:00.003-05:00

Thursday, April 30, 2009
5:30 p.m.
Sherwood Conservatory Recital Hall
1312 South Michigan Avenue
(1 block south of Roosevelt)

Reception to follow
Half-price issues

Contributors to this year's issue of Columbia Poetry Review, now in its 22nd year as the Columbia College Chicago English Department's student-edited, nationally distributed poetry magazine, will read their work.

Readers: Stevie Curl, Maureen Ewing, Susan Firer, Geoffrey Forsyth, Johannes Göransson, Gregory Kiewiet, Becca Klaver, Dolly Lemke, Tisha Nemeth-Loomis, Catherine Theis, and Joshua Marie Wilkinson.

The new issue features 100 pages of poetry from a wide array of poets, including Rachel Zucker, Maureen Seaton, Joshua Beckman, Joanne Kyger, Donald Revell, Christian Hawkey, and Timothy Liu to name a thin (but rich) slice!

Starting Today -- First a Blog, Now a Book!

2009-04-27T14:42:00.005-05:00

The University of Iowa Press will publish Starting Today: Poems for Obama's First 100 Days, in 2010!

Columbia College poetry professor Arielle Greenberg has been editing the "Starting Today" blog with her friend and collaborator Rachel Zucker since inauguration day in January.

Contributors to include:

Tony Trigilio, Director of Creative Writing--Poetry
Becca Klaver (MFA '07)
Ian Harris (MFA '07)
Yvette Thomas (current MFA student)
BJ Soloy (BA '07)

ANOTHER poetry reading at The Book Cellar

2009-04-20T17:34:00.005-05:00

I know there's a fantastic reading at Columbia on Wednesday afternoon.

But there's a fantastic reading following the Columbia reading at The Book Cellar on Wednesday, April 22 at 7 pm.

This week's poets:
Nicole Wilson
Kate Dougherty
Richard Fox
Robert McDonald

Check out more Book Cellar events and its fabulous beer, wine, and foods menu online at www.bookcellarinc.com.

The Book Cellar
4736-38 N. Lincoln Ave.
(773) 293-2665
words@bookcellarinc.com

Immortal Cupboard: In Search of Lorine Niedecker

2009-04-14T17:48:00.001-05:00

A Film by Cathy Cook

**Free** one night only!

Friday April 17th, 7pm
Loyola University (Rogers Park Campus)
Damen Hall
Finnegan Auditorium, Room 144
Red Line to Loyola Stop

The filmmaker will be on hand for a Q&A afterwards.

Tuesday, April 14th

2009-04-13T16:49:00.001-05:00

The Bookslut Reading Series

features

Kristy Bowen
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
Kristy Odelius

Tuesday, April 14 7:30pm
Hopleaf, Second Floor
5148 N. Clark Street

Bookslut.com wants to give their large and diverse Chicago audience the opportunity to hear and meet authors live and in person. Bookslut.com enjoys a loyal following in the city it now calls home, and the reading series attracts significant audiences from all parts of Chicagoland. Featuring three to four authors at each event, the ongoing monthly readings will highlight the unique, intelligent and omnivorous taste of one of the most popular literary websites of its kind.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

2009-04-10T09:58:00.002-05:00

City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Poems About Chicago

Edited by Ryan G. Van Cleave

One of the largest cities in North America, Chicago’s metropolitan area boasts 10 million residents, placing it in the world’s top 25 urban areas by population. A leader in transportation, telecommunications, and finance, Chicago is a city of great architectural significance, ethnic diversity, and cultural wealth. It’s also the birthplace of house music, the Poetry Slam, the skyscraper, chemotherapy, and improvisational comedy.

For these and many other reasons, Chicago has long been the inspiration for and subject of poems (Carl Sandburg’s “Chicago,” Marge Piercy’s “Visiting a Dead Man on a Summer Day,” Ezra Pound’s “Epilogue,” and Maxwell Bodenheim’s “South State Street: Chicago” to name just a few), though no definitive collection currently exists. Edited by Chicago native Ryan G. Van Cleave, City of the Big Shoulders intends to fill this void by gathering the best new poems about Chicago from natives, visitors, friends, and critics of this exciting city.

While any Chicago-related poems are welcome, possible topics might include:

• The Great Chicago Fire
• O’Hare International Airport
• Al Capone
• Lake Michigan
• Grant Park, Lincoln Park, & Jackson Park
• Chicago Bulls / Bears / White Sox / Cubs / Blackhawks
• Lake Effect snow
• The El
• The “Magnificent Mile”
• Soldier Field
• The Shedd Aquarium
• The Adler Planetarium
• Navy Pier
• The Chicago Tribune
• Chicago pizza
• The Chicago Loop
• The Sears Tower
• Lincoln Park Zoo
• Mayor Richard J. Daley (Sr. & Jr.)
• McCormick Place
• The TV show “ER”
• Barack Obama
• 1893 World Expo
• Louis Armstrong
• Chicago’s Native American background (Potawatomi, Miami, Sauk, Fox, Ottawa, Ojibwa)

As part of a commitment to lessen his own environmental impact, the editor requests all submissions be emailed (along with a 3–5 line bio) as .rtf or .doc attachments to: chicagopoetryanthology(at)yahoo.com (replace (at) with @). If you must send in hard copy, email and ask for a snail mail address.

Payment will be in copies. Tentative publication date is early 2010 (by the University of Iowa Press). Previously published submissions are fine if you control the rights.

The deadline for receiving submissions is May 1, 2009.