Sunday, April 18, 2004

Poetry Reading at the North Carolina Literary Festival

I attended the NC Literary Festival on Saturday (April 17). The weather has been great this weekend for the festival. At 9 am in the Erdahl-Cloyd Theater in the D.H. Hill Library at NC State was the Emerging Poets reading.

Tom Lisk introduced the poets.

Jonathan Minton presented a paper, "Emerging Poetry and Emerging Poetics." He also read from his forthcoming book, In Gestures, including a selection from his long poem "Imaginary Cuba," as well as his poems "The Byzantine Jar," "If the Object of Thinking is Thinking," and "Poem for Andy Kaufman." He also presented poems by poets published in the journal Word For/Word, which he edits. These poems were "99.9" by Noah Eli Gordon, as well as "Working Backwards" by Steven J. Stewart, and two poems by Cole Swensen:"The Hand that Caresses," and "The Hand as Harbor".

Darnell Arnoult read from her forthcoming book What Travels With Us. She read her poems "Outrageous Love," "Labor of Learning," "Spring House," "Second Shift," and others.

Aaron McCollough read "The Anatomy of Melancholy" from his book Double Venus. He next read "Totentanz with Love," "Court," and "'Court', An Interpretation" from his book Welkin. Aaron next read from Welkin: "Prothalamion Moment #n" and selections from "Having Rooms." He then read selections from "Shipwreck of the Singular" from Double Venus.

After the readings, the panel fielded questions from the audience, including questions on trends in poetry, and the publication process.

It was an enjoyable reading, and I'm glad I got the chance to meet Aaron McCollough and Jonathan Minton, as well as Tony Tost (author of Invisible Bride) who attended the reading. I was also happy to meet Jon Thompson who edits Free Verse.

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