WPR CALENDAR OF EVENTS
SPRING 2013 PUBLIC PROGRAMS
Throughout its history the Woodberry Poetry Room has played a vital role as a center for literary programming. To this day, the Poetry Room continues to expand its active and innovative role in the literary community through a wide range of public programs, including readings, seminars, workshops, panel discussions, listening hours and oral history sessions. For a weekly calendar of events, contact the Poetry Room via e-mail with "WPR Mailing List" as the subject header. 
SEASON KICKOFF & PHONE-A-POEM INSTALLATION
Our Spring 2013 kickoff gathering will celebrate our forthcoming season of events and offer a sneak preview of our Phone-A-Poem installation. The exhibit features recordings made during the 25-year existence of the popular Cambridge-based poetry hotline, Phone-A-Poem. Founded in 1976 by Peter Payack (and later edited by Roland Pease), Phone-A-Poem's archive includes recordings by Allen Ginsberg, Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon, Denise Levertov, Ifeanyi Menkiti, Marge Piercy, James Tate and August Wilson. The Poetry Room has also commissioned a series of new answering-machine poems by recent (and upcoming) readers in WPR programs, including Dan Beachy-Quick, Charles Bernstein, Forrest Gander, Dorothea Lasky, Paul Legault and Anne Waldman.
Food and beverages will be served, catered by Crema. Come one, come all.
Woodberry Poetry Room, Lamont Library, Room 330.
Free and open to the public. Installation on view through May 1, 2013.
WALDMAN
CONRAD
THE POET'S VOICE: READING SERIES
C.A. Conrad & Anne Waldman
Our Poet's Voice series is ushered in by two poets whose work consistently manages to break the sound-barriers of poetry: C.A. Conrad (author of The Book of Frank and A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon: New (Soma)tics) and Anne Waldman (author of over 40 books including the forthcoming Gossamurmur). A book-signing will follow.
Edison-Newman Room, Houghton Library.
Free and open to the public.
Friday, February 15, 5:00-7:00pm
Woodberry Poetry lab
Led by Adrienne Raphel
Open to Harvard undergraduates and graduate students, the Woodberry Poetry Lab is more than a workshop--it's a test kitchen, a particle accelerator, a utopian community, a roller rink. This is a forum to throw together the most unlikely combinations and to fine-tune to the subtlest degree. In each session, we'll conduct experiments and offer rigorous feedback on each other's poetry. The workshop will be led by Adrienne Raphel, a doctoral student in the English Department and a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Each Poetry Lab session will last approximately 2 hours: At the first meeting, participants will decide on a future schedule for the workshop (which will be held twice-monthly).
Woodberry Poetry Room, Lamont Library, Room 330.
Free and open to all Harvard undergraduate and graduate students.
woodward
BUChanan
UNCANNY VALLEY: PREMIERE PERFORMANCE
Oni Buchanan & Jon Woodward
In this newly-commissioned concert-length piece by composer John Gibson, the piano performance of Oni Buchanan joins and reflects the spoken text of the poem “Uncanny Valley” as performed by its author, poet Jon Woodward. Extending outward from the phenomenon of “semantic satiation” (whereby a single word loses all apparent meaning and identity when repeated for even a short duration), this program searches out what is most uncanny, and most human, in both language and music.
Paine Concert Hall, 1 Oxford Street.
Free and open to the public.
Thursday, March 7, 4:00-5:30pm
BERRYMAN
OMG & WTF: John berryman's legacy of extreme expression
Joy Katz, Kathleen Ossip, Rowan Phillips, Sasha Steensen & Heather Treseler
Four poet-critics address Berryman's abiding influence in contemporary poetry, exploring his Cold War social media (the séance, the therapy hour); his wildflower version of modernist confessionalism; and his upending of classical binaries in the Dream Songs. Assessing Berryman's voice prospectively and retrospectively, panelists evaluate how his bored-but-never-boring, alienating and alienated selves continue to inform lyric possibility.
Lamont Forum Room, Lamont Library.
Free and open to the public. AWP OFF-SITE EVENT.
WIENERS
LOWELL
Marinovich
THE BATTLE FOR BOSTON
Filip Marinovich Performs Robert Lowell & John Wieners
Good evening. Is this thing on? Test. This is John Wieners. Hello, I'm Robert Lowell, good evening. I got fired from Lamont Library for Benzedrine. That was you, John. You studied here, Robert. Yes. Thank you. Bipolar brothers. I'm bipolar too. That's no excuse. For what. For here is an AGON where two mad poets face off in a contest to see who will most exemplify Boston Polis Soul. When the past leapfrogs the present, we look at the process. What is lit up in the flash of white frog legs, O Charles River! with your rowers on you rowing hard, and harder, for the bards to sing them bard, and barder.
Woodberry Poetry Room, Lamont Library, Room 330.
Free and open to the public. A WP OFF-SITE EVENT.
Friday, March 8, 12:00pm & 4:00pm
cotner
SPONTANEOUS SOCIETY
Experimental Walks with Jon Cotner
Join Jon Cotner—co-author of Ten Walks/Two Talks (Ugly Duckling Presse)—on an imaginative amble that celebrates and creates fleeting (yet meaningful) encounters between strangers. Setting out into two distinct landscapes—that of Back Bay (at noon) and Harvard Square (at 4:00pm), Cotner will present each participant with a series of seemingly ordinary sentences that will generate unexpected connections and foster a more "spontaneous society." (These walks were originally presented in conjunction with Elastic City.)
Reservation Update: Both of Jon Cotner's walks are now completely filled. However, if you would like to be put on the Waiting List, please send us an email to davis2@fas.harvard.edu with the subject header: "Spontaneous Society Waitlist" and the specific time you are interested in: We will inform you of your "enrollment" by March 5, 2013. The walks will occur rain or shine.
12:00pm: Meets outside Hynes Convention Center, Boston, Mass.
4:00pm: Meets outside the Harvard Coop, Cambridge, Mass. A WP OFF-SITE EVENT.
THE ARCADIA PROJECT
THE ARCADIA PROJECT
Dan Beachy-Quick, John Beer, Timothy Donnelly, Gabriel Gudding, Dana Levin, Brian Teare & C.D. Wright
A dynamic range of contributors will read from one of the most compelling, "radical and needed" compilations of recent years: The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta Press, 2012). Hailed as a seminal and "masterfully curated" collection, The Arcadia Project was edited by G.C. Waldrep and Joshua Corey, both of whom will be present to introduce and emcee this not-to-be-missed event. Co-sponsored by the Woodberry Poetry Room and Ahsahta Press.
Edison-Newman Room, Houghton Library.
Free and open to the public. AWP OFF-SITE EVENT.
CARSON
RED DOC>: A READING & DIScussion
Anne Carson
The Woodberry Poetry Room, together with Harvard Bookstore and the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, is thrilled to welcome poet and translator Anne Carson for a reading and discussion of her latest work, Red Doc>.
First Parish Church, 1446 Massachusetts Avenue.
To reserve a ticket, visit http://www.harvard.com/event/anne_carson
Wednesday, March 27, 6:00pm - CANCELlED (will be rescheduled for a later date)
Heller
THE OBJECTIVIST CONSTELLATION & BEYOND
A Seminar & Recording Session with Michael Heller
Almost since he began publishing his poetry in the late nineteen-sixties, Michael Heller has been thinking and writing about the Objectivist poets, in particular George Oppen whom he knew and corresponded with for nearly 20 years. His presentation will focus on the powerful and rigorous contribution of their work and its influence on contemporary poetry, including his own. He will also read from his most recent publication, This Constellation Is A Name: Collected Poems 1965-2010 (Nightboat Books, 2012).
Woodberry Poetry Room, Lamont Library, Room 330.
Free and open to the public.
arthur
LIGHTNING SESSIONS
Poetry Workshop & Recording Session with James Arthur
In this 90-minute workshop and recording session, 2013 Hodder Fellow James Arthur will explore strategies for subduing your inner critic and help you to create poems whose meanings and findings will surprise you. The workshop will culminate in a recording session from his new collection, Charms Against Lightning (Copper Canyon, 2012). A recipient of the Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship, a Wallace Stegner fellowship and the Discovery/The Nation Prize, Arthur's poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, The New Yorker and Poetry.
Woodberry Poetry Room, Lamont Library, Room 330
Free and open to the public. Photo ID required for entry.
SIKELIANOS
NOTLEY
CATHERINE L. MORRISSEY MEMORIAL READING
Alice Notley & Eleni Sikelianos. Introduction by Patrick Pritchett.
We are proud to present, as the finale event in our Poet's Voice series, a reading by two capacious creators of uncompromising works and worlds: Alice Notley (author of over 25 poetry collections, including Culture of One) and Eleni Sikelianos (author of The Loving Detail of the Living & the Dead and The California Poem). This Poet's Voice reading also marks our first annual Catherine L. Morrissey reading, honoring the life and work of the poet and Harvard G'76 alum. A book-signing will follow.
Edison-Newman Room, Houghton Library.
Free and open to the public. Photo ID required for entry.
Wednesday, May 1, 6:00pm - CANCELLED
creeley (Photographed by elsa Dorfman)
ORAL HISTORY INITIATIVE: ON ROBERT CREELEY
Charles Bernstein, Penelope Creeley, Elsa Dorfman, Richard Deming, Susan Howe & C.D. Wright
Our Spring 2013 season ends with a gathering of (Buffalo, Providence and Boston-based) friends and family members of Robert Creeley (1926-2005), introduced by Richard Deming. Audience members are also encouraged to share their reminiscences. "Being there," to quote Creeley, "is the only requirement."
Thompson Room, Barker Center, 12 Quincy Street.
Free and open to the public.