Poetry Foundation Announces Fall 2006 Literary Series
Upcoming season showcases renowned poets David Lehman, Mark Strand, Robert Hass, and Gary Snyder as well as a special performance of Molière’s Tartuffe
CHICAGO—The Poetry Foundation is pleased to announce the line-up for its 2006 Fall Literary Series, beginning at 6:00 pm on September 7th, with a reading by poet and anthologist David Lehman at The Newberry Library.
The 2006 series of public poetry events will offer a variety of programs, including poetry readings, staged adaptations of verse drama, panel discussions, and musical performances.
Thursday, September 7 @ 6 pm
Poetry Off the Shelf: David Lehman
The Newberry Library
60 West Walton Street
David Lehman recently edited The Oxford Book of American Poetry, for the first time bringing together such writers as Charles Bukowski, Bob Dylan, and Patti Smith with anthology staples like Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Anne Bradstreet. Lehman, who founded the prestigious Best American Poetry annual in 1988 and continues as series editor, will read from this surprising new collection and discuss the always controversial art of making anthologies.
Admission is free, but reservations are required, call 312.787.7070.
Saturday, September 16 @ 7 pm & 9 pm
Poetry on Stage: Patricia Barber
Buntrock Hall, Chicago Symphony Center
220 South Michigan Avenue
In two shows co-sponsored with Blue Note Records, innovative jazz-singer and pianist Patricia Barber performs work from Mythologies, a thoroughly modern song cycle inspired by tales from Ovid. Barber, who completed Mythologies with help from a Guggenheim Fellowship, has also drawn on poetry in earlier recordings such as Verse and Modern Cool.
Admission is free, tickets are not required. Seating is first come, first served.
Friday, September 29 @ 6 pm
Poetry Off the Shelf: Mark Strand
Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago
Michigan Avenue & Adams Street
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mark Strand reads work from his new collection, Man and Camel. Strand’s eleven books of poetry include Blizzard of One, which won the Pulitzer Prize, Dark Harbor, and The Continuous Life. He has also translated Rafael Alberti and Carlos Drummond de Andrade.
Tickets $15, $10 for AIC members, students, and seniors. To reserve tickets call 312.575.8000.
Tuesday, October 17 @ 6 pm
Poetry Day: Robert Hass
Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago
Michigan Avenue & Adams Street
Award-winning poet, translator, environmentalist, and former poet laureate Robert Hass is featured in one of the oldest reading series in the country, inaugurated over 50 years ago by Robert Frost. Hass is the author of several volumes of verse, most recently Human Wishes and Sun Under Wood, as well as numerous translations of the late Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz, his colleague at Berkeley. His essays are collected in Twentieth Century Pleasures. Hass is the founder of River of Words, an organization that promotes environmental and arts education in affiliation with the Library of Congress Center for the Book.
Tickets $15, $10 for students and seniors. To reserve tickets, call 312.787.7070.
Saturday, November 4 @ 8 pm
Poetry on Stage: Aurea
The Merit School
38 South Peoria Street
The Rhode Island ensemble Aurea presents War Music, a performance piece featuring live music, narration, and dance, based on Christopher Logue’s epic adaptation of Homer’s Iliad. In pursuit of its artistic mission to invigorate the relationship between music and the spoken word, Aurea commissioned composer and conductor Paul Phillips to write original songs and instrumental music for Logue’s modernized version of Homer’s tale. This event is presented as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival.
Tickets $5 in advance, $6 at the door, on sale September 5th. To reserve tickets, call 312.494.9509.
Sunday, November 5 @ 12:30 pm
Poetry Off the Shelf: Gary Snyder
Fullerton Hall, Art Institute of Chicago
Michigan Avenue & Adams Street
Gary Snyder is the author of over a dozen books of poetry, essays, and translations. A deeply committed ecologist who has received the John Hay Award for Nature Writing, Snyder has also been recognized for his contributions to the theory and practice of Buddhism. His reading is presented in collaboration with the Silk Road Project, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Chicago Humanities Festival.
Tickets are $5 in advance, $6 at the door, on sale September 5th. To reserve tickets, call 312.494.9509.
Sunday, November 5 @ 3:30 pm
Poems of Peace & War
Chicago History Museum
Clark Street at North Avenue
A panel discussion on poetry and war featuring poets Gary Snyder, Yusef Komunyakaa, Philip Metres, Dunya Mikhail, Brian Turner, and Jorie Graham. The event is co-sponsored with the Chicago Humanities Festival.
Tickets are $5 in advance, $6 at the door, on sale September 5th. To reserve tickets, call 312.494.9509.
Friday-Sunday, November 17, 18, 19 @ 7 pm
Poetry on Stage: Tartuffe
A play in verse by Molière
Claudia Cassidy Theater, Chicago Cultural Center
77 East Randolph Street
“Ah! Devout though I may be, I am no less a man!” pleads the would-be seducer Tartuffe in Molière’s well-known farce about religious authority and hypocrisy. First performed in 1664, and eventually suppressed at the urging of clerics, the play is as timely now as it was in the court of Louis XIV at Versailles. For three nights only, Second City co-founder Bernard Sahlins assembles a cast of Chicago’s finest actors for a staged reading of Richard Wilbur’s celebrated verse translation of Le Tartuffe ou l’imposteur. Richard Christiansen, longtime theater critic at the Chicago Tribune, will lead a discussion following each performance.
Tickets are $15, $10 for students and seniors. To reserve tickets, call 312.787.7070.
For more information on the upcoming season of events, please visit www.PoetryFoundation.org.
About the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine and one of the largest literary organizations in the world, exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, please visit www.PoetryFoundation.org.