hcl.harvard.edu

Reel Time @ The Woodberry
September 2008 – May 2009
REEL TIME is an acoustical journey through one of the preeminent audio archives in the country. Each week throughout the semester participants are invited to read, write and chat during these creative listening sessions at the Woodberry Poetry Room. The weekly listening hours will follow an almost alphabetical route through the Poetry Room's 20th and 21st century collection.

Impromptu Poetics: WPR Recording Sessions
February 20, 2009 at 12:00pm
Recording Session with Ilya Kaminsky (author of Dancing in Odessa) and Polina Barskova (author of Traveling Musicians)

March 2, 2009 at 5:00pm
Recording Session with Richard Tillinghast (author of The New Life)

March 19, 2009 at 11:00am & 3:00pm
Recording Session with Susan Howe (author of Souls of the Labadie Tract), 11:00am
Recording Session with Zafer Senocak (author of Door Languages), 3:00pm
This exciting new series harks back to one of the Poetry Room's original roles as a pioneering poetry-recording venue. With its early recording label, Harvard Vocarium, the Poetry Room was once a kind of Motown of Modernist poetry. Our new series revives this role for the 21st century and offers attendees a close-listening experience like never before. Each guest poet is invited to add his/her voice to the Woodberry Poetry Room's vital archive by reading new work for 15-20 minutes. Audience members are invited to listen as the recording session takes place and take part in a brief Q&A.

Woodberry Works-in-Progress
April 7, 2009 at 3:00pm
Maximum Security Poems: On Boxes, Vasko Popa, Prison and Poetry
Guest: Idra Novey (author of The Next Country)

April 16, 2009 at 3:00pm
Hamlet's Blackberry: Poetry & Disconnectedness in the Digital Era
Guest: Bill Powers (author of the forthcoming Hamlet's Blackberry)
Journalist and two time National Press Club award winner William Powers, AB ' 83 will lead a discussion on the role of poetry in an "always connected" world. Powers began his career at The Washington Post as a staff writer and columnist specializing in the media. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New York Times, and many other publications, and he has been a frequent contributor on National Public Radio and other broadcast outlets.

This exciting new series harks back to one of the Poetry Room's original roles as a pioneering poetry-recording venue. With its early recording label, Harvard Vocarium, the Poetry Room was once a kind of Motown of Modernist poetry. Our new series revives this role for the 21st century and offers attendees a close-listening experience like never before. Each guest poet is invited to add his/her voice to the Woodberry Poetry Room's vital archive by reading new work for 15-20 minutes. Audience members are invited to listen as the recording session takes place and take part in a brief Q&A.

The First Annual Briggs-Copeland Poetry Reading
February 19, 2009 at 7:00 p.m
A celebration of the prestigious Briggs-Copeland lectureships, featuring readings by current poetry lecturers Joanna Klink (author of Circadian) and Peter Richards (author of Nude Siren). Introduced by Bret Anthony Johnston, Director of Creative Writing. Co-sponsored by the Woodberry Poetry Room and the Department of English.

Brahmins & Beyond: Matthew Pearl on the Poetic and Literary History of Boston and Cambridge
February 26, 2009 at 7:00 p.m
Matthew Pearl (author of the international bestsellers Dante's Club and Poe's Shadow) takes us on an illuminating journey through Boston's literary landscape during its 19th and early 20th century heyday. Co-sponsored by the Woodberry Poetry Room and The Wick, a publication of the Harvard Divinity School.

The Poet's Voice: Mary Jo Bang, Catherine Barnett, and Noelle Kocot
March 11, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.
Join us as we launch our season of Poet's Voice readings with three preeminent poets: National Book Critics Circle Award winner Mary Jo Bang (author of Elegy and the forthcoming The Bride of E), Whiting Award winner Catherine Barnett (author of Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes are Pierced) and Noelle Kocot (author of Poem for the End of Time and Other Poems). Broadsides of a poem by each author will be produced by Harvard's Bow & Arrow Press.

The Poet's Voice: Maurice Manning, Sabrina Orah Mark, and Jeffrey Yang
March 18, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.
Join us for the second reading in our Poet's Voice series, featuring poets from across the country whose work is staking out new terrain in the American grain. Our readers for the evening will be Yale Younger Poets Prize winner Maurice Manning (author of Bucolics), Sabrina Orah Mark (author of Tsim Tsum and The Babies) and Jeffrey Yang (author of An Aquarium: Poems).

Reconfiguring Romanticism: Readings from Poems for the Millennium, Volume Three,
with Bill Corbett, Gerrit Lansing, Jeffrey C. Robinson, Jerome Rothenberg, Keith Waldrop & others
March 30, 2009 at 7:00pm
In conjunction with the recent release of Poems for the Millennium, Volume Three, this reading and discussion will reveal surprising continuities between the Romantic canon and the experiments of modernism and postmodernism. Introduced by Patrick Pritchett.

Critical Contexts: A Woodberry Poetry Roundtable on the State of Contemporary Poetry
April 1, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.
National Poetry Month begins with a dynamic interchange among three influential poet-critics Stephen Burt, Adam Kirsch, and Maureen McLane, as they survey the contemporary poetry landscape and share their current fascinations, concerns and discoveries. Moderated by Robert N. Casper (Program Director of the Poetry Society of America and Publisher of Jubilat). Co-sponsored by the Woodberry Poetry Room and the Poetry Society of America.

The Poet's Voice: Dobby Gibson, Fanny Howe, and Sarah Manguso
April 20, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.
Join us for the grand finale reading in our Spring 2009 Poet's Voice series, featuring Dobby Gibson (author of Skirmish, forthcoming from Graywolf Press), Rome Prize winner Sarah Manguso (author of Two Kinds of Decay and Siste Viator), and the 2008 recipient of the Academy Award in Literature, Fanny Howe (author of Gone: Poems and The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation, forthcoming from Graywolf Press).