Flemish Skulls in a Modern Context

VANITAS 4 : TRANSLATION

The fourth issue of VANITAS embarks on the large topic of translation. Translation is always key, as it provides portals and doorways through which we enter intootherwise closed-off regions of human experience. At the current moment of mutual suspicion and intolerance, translation seems to have taken on a new vitality in the worlds of poetry and poetics. We were interested in a variety of takes on the IDEA of translation, and we received a dynamic range of responses.

Translations, versions, adaptations, homophonics, riffs, fragments, experiments by Brunella Antomarini, Tim Atkins, Mary Jo Bang, Lindsey Boldt, Charles Borkhuis, Ted Berrigan, Kenneth Goldsmith, Jack Hirschman, Jen Hofer, Ron Horning, Ron Padgett, Charles A. Perrone, Ed Sanders, Mónica de la Torre, John Tranter, Stephen Vincent, Paul Violi, Anne Waldman, Laura Wright, Bill Zavatsky, and others. The translations are complemented by poems by Sean Casey, Alan Davies, Ray DiPalma, Mark Du Charme, Joanna Fuhrman, Lisa Jarnot, Dean Kostos, Barry Schwabsky, Elizabeth Young, and others. ( I am thrilled to be one of the "others").

Critical texts that are also sometimes experimental texts — on translation and also on that rare decade The ‘70s — are provided by Charles Bernstein, Michael Lally, Jonathan Mayhew, Mary Maxwell, Luiza Franco Moreira, Yuko Otomo, Kit Robinson, Raphael Rubinstein, Michael Schorsch, Eileen R. Tabios, and Lewis Warsh.

Art is contributed by that special friend of poetry, Francesco Clemente, with additional visual work by Augusto de Campos and Brandon Downing.

VANITAS 4 : TRANSLATION is available through Small Press Distribution (www.spdbooks.org) or PayPal (see above).
If you live in NYC Vanitas can be found at McNally Jackson (SOHO) and St.Mark's Bookstore (East Village).

To Be Written, To Be Read

Ah, I just got back from the Lit Magazine fair at Housing Works. It's a sunny day in New York and the taste of Gimme Coffee's Las Mingas still lingers on my tongue.

After I post this blog I'm going to head outdoors to find a bench and read. Here's what I picked up:

Tantalum
Bateau
Washington Square
Field
Lungfull
Lana Turner
Columbia Poetry Review
Court Greene
New York Quaterly

If you are still planning on heading over there I recommend all of the above journals ,as well as, Saltgrass and LIT (I already own both of those).

I have to say I'm pleased to pick up Bateau and Field because I can't find those journals in the bookstore. Actually, Field might be at Barnes & Nobles but I try and purchase all of my journals from St. Mark's Bookstore or McNally Jackson. Although if I want a Denver Quarterly then I have head over to B&N which is exactly why I've missed the last two issues, but I did duck into B&N last week just to read Angela Veronica Wong's poems in DQ.

Here comes the sun or so some say

I went to bed around 2 or so, yet woke up at 6:32. I could not fall back to sleep. I watched Battle Star Galactica. I read. I somehow made weak french press & did my dishes. I went to eat yogurt but found out I am out of granola. I thought I just bought granola. I have not eaten. I have not gone back to sleep. I fretted over losing my fourth class, which is the only class I was looking forward to. Spent hours crafting the perfect syllabus & making a packet containing poems by Gingsberg and Reyes, as well as, short stories by Barthelme, Wong & Borges. I will read my packet and pretend I am teaching. No I will shower, do laundry, clean my room, buy tickets for the Crystal Stilts show (assuming it is not sold-out) and walk to St. Mark's Bookstore. Or maybe I'll fall back asleep and dream of doing all of these things, or,,,

Human Heat for Winter Weeks

Thursday, January 22nd 7:30 at Solas Bar 232 E. 9th Street
With New York legends Simon Pettet and Susie Timmons!

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EARSHOT is off to a great start this year! Help us keep going strong and join us on Friday, January 23rd at 8 PM at ROSE LIVE MUSIC, on 345 Grand Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn!

Our featured readers will be X-ing Books superstars JUSTIN TAYLOR (author of More Perfect Depictions of Noise) and JEREMY SCHMALL (author of Open Correspondence from the Senator)! As usual, three MFA readers of the highest caliber will be joining them. And admission is a mere $5, which gets you a free drink! Call it the Recession Special. See you there!

Your pal,
Nicole


EARSHOT!

Join us at our new venue, ROSE LIVE MUSIC, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn!

*Friday, January 23rd at 8 PM*
Admission: $5 + FREE DRINK!

Hosted by Nicole Steinberg

Featuring:
Justin Taylor (More Perfect Depictions of Noise)
Jeremy Schmall (Open Correspondence from the Senator)
Monica Wendel (New York University)
Dawn Marie Knopf (Columbia University)
Barbara Sueko McGuire (Sarah Lawrence College)

ROSE LIVE MUSIC is located at 345 Grand Street in Brooklyn, between Havemeyer and Marcy. Visit their website for directions: http://liveatrose.com.
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Dear Friends,

We are very pleased to announce the launch of Triptych Readings* on Monday January 26, when we will be hosting the venerable Charles Bernstein, former editor of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E magazine and myriad anthologies, author of fifteen poetry collections and four collections of essays; Shanxing Wang, author of the enthusiastically reviewed collection, Mad Science in Imperial City; and Christopher Stackhouse, visual/performance artist, author of the chapbook Slip and generator of drawings and collaborative author (with John Keene) of a collection entitled Seismosis. We are thrilled to have these three fantastic poets with us and hope you'll come out to the 11th Street Bar and listen up!

Monday January 26, 7 PM
Charles Bernstein
Shanxing Wang
Christopher Stackhouse

510 E. 11th Street
Between Avenues A & B
Closest subway: L to 1st Avenue. Also walkable: F/V at 2nd Ave, L at 3rd Ave or 14th Street / Union Square 4/5/6/N/Q/R/W/L.
Look for a small porch and the Guinness sign outside the bar.

Check out our brand-new website: www.triptychreading.com. Click on the bar's address on our site for a google map, and click on readers' names to read their poems!

Charles Bernstein's books include Blind Witness: Three American Operas (Factory School), new in 2008; Girly Man (University of Chicago Press), now in paperback; Shadowtime (Green Integer), libretto for an opera on Benjamin; Republics of Reality: 1975-1995 (Sun & Moor Press), Content's Dream: Essays 1975-1984 (Northwestern), and Controlling Interests (Roof). He is Donald T. Regan Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. More info: epc.buffalo.edu.

Shanxing Wang was born in Qi county, Jinzhong, Shanxi province, China in 1965. In 1991, he moved to the U.S. to pursue a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. He began reading and writing poetry in 2002 while teaching Engineering at Rutgers University. His first book, Mad Science in Imperial City (Futurepoem, 2005), was the winner of the 2006 Asian American Literary Award for Poetry. He lives and writes in Queens, New York.

Christopher Stackhouse is the author of poetry collected in the chapbook Slip (Corollary Press, 2005); co-author of Seismosis (1913 Press 2006), a collaboration featuring Stackhouse's drawings and John Keene's text. He holds an MFA from Bard College; is a Cave Canem Writers Fellow; and is a 2005 Fellow in Poetry, New York Foundation for the Arts. His recent essays have been published in the literary journal American Poet, and the anthology A Best of Fence: The First Nine Years. He will be a guest faculty member in the Naropa University Summer Writing Program 2009, at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Colorado. Currently completing a manuscript of poetry, while also doing research for the development of a non-fiction book on poetics, Stackhouse lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

The Lazy Blogger Brings You Some Events

Please join THE ST. MARK'S BOOKSHOP READING SERIES on Thursday, October 2nd, as we invite poets Joshua Clover, Simone Muench and Philip Jenks to the Solas stage.

JOSHUA CLOVER'S book of poetry The Totality for Kids is currently being translated into Polish and his critical book on The Matrix was recently published in Czech. He has just completed a book on pop music and the fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989: Bob Dylan Didn't Have This to Sing About.

SIMONE MUENCH'S second book Lampblack & Ash received the Kathryn A. Morton Prize for Poetry (Sarabande Books, 2005). Her latest chapbooks are Orange Girl (dancing girl press, 2007) and Sonoluminescence written with Bill Allegrezza (Dusie Press, 2007). She works collaboratively with Philip Jenks, with poems appearing in The Canary, Zoland, Eleven Eleven and others.
All St. Mark's Bookshop events are free to the public.

PHILIP JENKS'S latest book of poetry, My First Painting Will Be "The Accuser," was released by Zephyr Press. He works collaboratively with Simone Muench and plays regularly with recording artists The Howling Hex.

It begins Thursday, October 2nd, at 7:30 PM sharp, at SOLAS BAR (232 E. Ninth Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues).
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Conversations on Great Contemporary Literature

Thursday, October 2nd at 7pm
at Idlewild Books (12 W. 19th Street New York, NY)
Launch Event Party with Free Drinks and Merriment!
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This Friday, October 3rd, 7pm

Enjoy the Convenience, Variety and Brilliance of

Jennifer Firestone, Kristin Palm, David Blair & Samuel White, Under One Roof!

Jennifer Firestone is the co-editor of Letters to Poets: Conversations About Poetics, Politics, and Community, forthcoming in October from Saturnalia Books. She is the author of Holiday (Shearsman Books), Waves (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs), and From Flashes and snapshot (both by Sona Books). Her work has appeared in HOW2, LUNGFULL!, Xcp: Streetnotes, 580 Split, Saint Elizabeth Street and others. She is an Assistant Professor teaching poetry at Eugene Lang College at The New School For Liberal Arts, and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their infant twins.

Kristin Palm's writing has appeared in Boog City, Chain, There, Dusie, the anthology Bay PoeticsMetropolis magazine and its blog, POV. Her book The Straits (two long poems about Detroit, her former hometown) was published this year by the serendipitously named Palm Press. Kristin lives in San Francisco. (Faux Press, 2006), and numerous other places. She writes regularly for

David Blair's first book Ascension Days was chosen by Thomas Lux for the 2006 Del Sol Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in the anthologies Zoland Poetry and The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, as well as in many journals including The Boston Review, Fence, The Harvard Review, and Tuesday, an Art Project. He is currently on the faculty of the New England Institute of Art and he lives in Somerville, Massachusetts, with his wife Sabrina and his daughter Astrid.

Sam White is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the author of one book of poems, The Goddess of the Hunt is Not Herself, published by Slope Editions in 2005. He is also the author and illustrator of two graphic novels and the founder and director of Woolly Fair, a summer arts festival located in Providence, Rhode Island. Recently he directed "Rash of Robberies" a stop-motion music video for the band State Radio which was featured last summer in the 1st International Animation Festival in Poznan, Poland. He lives and works in Monohasset Mill, an artist community in Providence, with his wife Gillian Kiley.

Only at Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(718) 302-3770
"L" to Lorimer, "G" to Metropolitan. FREE!
Visit http://www.multifariousarray.blogspot.com/ for links to their work and email me for more information.
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New School Professor David Lehman presents “Wild Nights: The Poetry of Eros”

On Friday October 3, at 1 PM, David Lehman will present "Wild Nights: The Poetry of Eros" at the New School's Lang Auditorium (55 West 13 Street, 2^nd Floor). He will talk about a range of poems on erotic themes, principally by American poets from Whitman and Dickinson to the present.

He will read and comment on "August in West Hollywood" by Deborah Landau as well as poems by Tennessee Williams, Hart Crane, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Moira Egan, Charles Bukowski, Kenneth Koch, A. R. Ammons, Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon, Jill Alexander Essbaum, and Laura Cronk.

Lehman has edited The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present (Scribner) in which most of the aforementioned poems appear.

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Wednesday's Death Match + Ange Mlinko on Thursday

Ugly Duckling Presse presents

Wednesday, May 28, at 8pm [NYC]
6x6 SALON at THE KITCHEN
Release of #15! Readings by 6x6 poets:
Corina Copp, Lawrence Giffin, David Goldstein,
Will Hubbard, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Douglas Rothschild.
& MUSIC by THE QUAVERS and I FEEL TRACTOR.
@ THE KITCHEN
512 W. 19th Street, NYC (free)
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Two Poets + Happy Hour

The Reading at Chrystie St
Curator: Steve Roberts
Featuring: Nathan Austin & Lauren Ireland
Home Sweet Home, 131 Chrystie Street, 7pm
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You Were You Are Elegy by Mary Jo Bang Muckraker by Cate Marvin Sleep by Meghan O'Rourke Conversion Comedy by Ange Mlinko

Poetry Magazine Presents: Two NYC Independent Bookstore Readings Poetry magazine presents two readings at independent NYC bookstores, featuring recent magazine contributors. Admission is free; brief Q&A’s and book signings will follow the readings. Complimentary Poetry magazines and tote bags will be available to attendees! Wednesday, May 28th, 7:00 p.m. Mary Jo Bang, Cate Marvin, Philip Nikolayev, and Meghan O'Rourke. Housing Works Bookstore Café, 126 Crosby St, New York, New York ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Thursday, May 29, 7:30 p.m. Lydia Davis, Ange Mlinko, and Lewis Warsh St. Mark’s Bookshop Reading Series, at Solas Bar 232 East Ninth Street New York, New York About Housing Works Bookstore Café Housing Works Bookstore Café is an independent cultural center that offers patrons a unique opportunity to join the fight against AIDS and homelessness. Practicing arts-based philanthropy, Housing Works allows visitors to make a difference simply by buying or donating books; eating at their cafe; coming to concerts, readings, and special events; or volunteering for staff. www.housingworksbookstore.org About St. Mark's Bookshop St. Mark's Bookshop was established in 1977 in New York's East Village, as a community of students, academics, arts professionals and other eclectic readers. The bookshop’s specialties include Cultural Theory, Graphic Design, Poetry & Small Press Publishers, Film Studies and Foreign & Domestic Periodicals & Journals. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Upcoming events to keep an eye out for Veronica Wong@ Control Poetry Series, LIT Issue 14 Launch Party, Fou Launch Party

Productive trip to St. Marks Bookstore

This pass Saturday I treated myself to an over-priced but delicious pineapple-cucumber juice and then bought some books at St.Marks. I bought

Yoko Tawada's Facing the Bridge (short stories)
Brian Kim Steffan's What is Said to the Poet Concerning Flowers
Lawrence Ferlinghetti's Poetry as Insurgent Art
Factorial 5 (Lit mag on contemporary Japanese poetry/poets)