[Wgcp-whc] WG/CP--Spring schedule, 1st meeting 1/18

[richard.deming at yale.edu]

Dear All,

greetings at the beginning of a new year.  I write to give glad tidings of the
spring semester schedule for the Working Group in Contemporary Poetics.  Last
semester, of course, we had a terrific line up with visits from Rachel Back,
Rosmarie Waldrop, and Christian Bok.  We concluding with an extremely
informative session on Marianne Moore with Senior Curator of the Yale
Collection of American Literature at the Beinecke, Patricia Willis, one of the
foremost scholars of Moore and her poetics. One aspect of the session included
the movement through the various versions of Moore's famous poem "Poetry,"
which illuminated the poet's insistence on a consistent syllabic form. That
session extended the discussion of Pat's article that emphasizes the ways that
biographical and historical details deepen the reading of the sometimes
obdurate work of this absolutely central modernist poet. I'd remind people that
Pat's article is available at our online
archives(http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/wgcp-whc/). Once again, we'd like
to extend warm thanks to Pat Willis for leading us into and through Moore's
work.  At least once a year, the group holds just such a session at the
Beinecke (one of of our institutional sponsors)to make use of the deep
resources that collection has in terms of modernist and avant-garde poetics.

But our thoughts turn to this semester.  Our first meeting will be JAN 18.  The
focus of that session will be "La Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite
Jehanne de France" by Blaise Cendrars.  This piece will be at the center of an
exhibition at the Beinecke this spring, "Metaphor Taking Shape: Poetry, Art, and
the Book" and it will be the subject of the exhibition opening, a concert
featuring a new musical setting of the poem, taking place Jan. 23-25. The work
itself is one of the most important and most famous artist book collaborations
of all time--a work Cendrars did with artist Sonia Delauny. We will look at a
new translation of the text by Tim Young (associate curator of Modern  Books). 
We will supplement this with two essays by Marjorie Perloff.  One, a reading of
how WWI shapes and informs this important text, is available here: go to
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/perloff/ and scroll down and click on :The Great
War and the European Avant Garde. Another (actually an
excerpt from The Futurist Moment)is now available at the WHC in our mail slot
in the main office.  There one will also find (for comparison) a translation of
Cendrar's poem by Ron Padgett.

As ever, these are listed at our online schedule available
here:
http://beineckepoetry.wordpress.com/working-group-in-contemporary-poetry/wgcp-schedule-and-readings/
That is where one will find the original French text and Tim's translation.

The schedule will also give people dates of our upcoming meetings and related
events.  This semester we will discuss Charles Bernstein's libretto on Walter
Benjamin entitled Shadowtime.  We will also have visits from Rachel Blau
Duplessis a poet and premier scholar of feminism, objectivist poetics, and the
poets H.D. and George Oppen as well as a visit from one of the most important
figures in digital poetics, John Cayley.

As you will see, in many ways this will be our most packed and exciting
semester yet.

Be sure to spread the word to anyone who might be interested in the group and
its activities.  The sessions are open to all.

The Working Group in Contemporary Poetry and Poetics meets every other Friday
at 3.00 PM in room 116 at the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University to
discuss problems and issues of contemporary poetry within international
alternative and /or avant-garde traditions of lyric poetry. All are welcome to
attend.




Sincerely,
Richard Deming, Co-coordinator

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