New Writing Series Spring 2010

Jerome Rothenberg and Alberto Blanco, Thursday, April 8, 2010, 4:30-6:00 p.m. at the Geisel Library, Seuss Room
	Jerome Rothenberg is an internationally known poet, performance artist, translator and anthologist with over eighty books of poetry and ten assemblages of traditional and contemporary poetry such as Technicians of the Sacred and Poems for the Millennium. Triptych, his thirteenth book of poems from New Directions, appeared in 2007, and a nineteenth-century prequel to Poems for the Millennium and a new book of essays, Poetics & Polemics, were both published in 2009. Three new books of poetry are scheduled for this coming year.
	Alberto Blanco A Cage of Transparent Words Gary Snyder writes: “It is all done with great sureness, making a surprising bridge from the inconclusive and mysterious to a dry and faintly whimsical patience. Somehow they help you get loose.” Blanco is currently a visiting professor with UCSD's Department of Literature.

Carla Faesler, Wednesday, April 14, 2010, 4:30-6:00 p.m. at the Visual Arts Facility: Performance Space
	Carla Faesler is an interdisciplinary poet and dramatist from Mexico who has consistently pushed the boundaries of what can constitute poetic activity. She is the author of Anábasis Maqueta (México, Editorial Diamantina y Difocur, 2003), which won the Gilberto Owen National Prize of Literature. Other books include Tú Sino la Piedra (México, El Tucán de Viginia 1999) and Ríos Sagrados Que la Herejía Navega (México, Mixcóatl, 1996). Faesler’s work is featured in Sin Puertas Visibles (Pittsburgh University Press, 2003), a bilingual anthology of emerging women poets from Mexico edited and translated by Jen Hofer. With Rocío Cerón, Faesler is the cofounder of MotínPoeta, an interdisciplinary arts collective of primarily women poets based in Mexico City. Through her own work and MotínPoeta, Faesler has helped redefine poetic practice among a younger generation of poets and artists in Mexico.

Sara Riggs and Monica de la Torre, Wednesday, April 21, 2010, 4:30-6:00 p.m., Visual Arts Facility: Performance Space
	Sarah Riggs is a poet, translator, and visual artist, born in New York in 1971. She has lived in Paris since 2001, where she is an integral member of the bilingual poetry collective, Double Change, and the director of Tamaas, a non-profit arts organization. In 2006, she began teaching for Columbia University in Paris. Waterwork is her first volume of poetry in English. Chain of Miniscule Decisions in the Form of a Feeling is forthcoming with Reality Street Editions. 28 télégrammes and 60 textos have been translated by Françoise Valéry and published by Editions de l'Attente. A book of essays, Word Sightings: Poetry and Visual Media in Stevens, Bishop, and O’Hara, appeared with Routledge in 2002. From the French, Sarah Riggs has translated poetry by Etel Adnan, Marie Borel, Oscarine Bosquet, Isabelle Garron, Jérôme Mauche, and Ryoko Sekiguchi. Her installation Underwritten—Chambre d'illisibilité (Galerie eof, Paris, 2007) explores language plurality.
	Born in Mexico City, Mónica de la Torre came to the United States on a Fulbright scholarship to Columbia University, where she is now pursuing a PhD in Spanish literature. Her poetry explores both the boundaries and the permeability of imposed identity, combining a playful use of form and dry humor with a hint of hopefulness. Talk Shows, her first book in English, was published in 2007 by Switchback Books, and Public Domain was published by Segue Foundation in 2008. She is the co-author of the book Appendices, Illustrations & Notes (Smart Art Press) with artist Terence Gower, and co-editor, with Michael Wiegers, of Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry (Copper Canyon Press). She has published translations several Spanish-language poets, including a volume of poetry by Gerardo Deniz. Since 2001, De la Torre has been the poetry editor of The Brooklyn Rail.

Lyn Hejinian, Wednesday, April 28, 2010, 4:30-6:00 p.m. at the Visual Arts Facility: Performance Space
	As a poet, essayist, translator and teacher, Lyn Hejinian has contributed significantly to the ways young poets consider their craft. Author of the influential My Life and The Cold of Poetry, her investigations into language come from many perspectives: theoretical, practical, linguistic and poetic. Her most recent books are Saga / Circus (2008) and a collection of collaborations written with Jack Collom, Situations, Sings (2008). Lyn Hejinian’s honors are numerous, and include a Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts for her translations of Russian poet Arkadii Dragomoshchenko and a fellowship from The Academy of American Poets for distinguished poetic achievement at mid-career. With Travis Ortiz, she is the co-director of Atelos, a literary project commissioning and publishing cross-genre work by poets. Other collaborative projects include The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography, co-written with nine other poets. In the spring of 2007, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. She teaches in the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley.

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