Juliana Spahr Reading

The Marjorie Putnam Sinclair Edel Reading Series presents an evening reading with poet Juliana Spahr...

Juliana Spahr began writing her most recent book, This Connection of Everyone with Lungs (U of California P, 2005) when she realized that the US would once again begin bombing Iraq. In this series of poems written from November 30, 2002 to March 30, 2003, she mixes lyric conventions with news reports of the deployment to write a series of prose poems that wrap with equal, angular grace around lovers and battleships. The New York Times called This Connection “a poetics of superinformation” and Publishers Weekly called it “innovative, incantatory, politically charged and decidedly accessible.”

Other recent work includes the essay collection Poetry & Pedagogy: the Challenge of the Contemporary (Palgrave, 2006), edited with Joan Retallack. She has edited the journal Chain with Jena Osman for the last twelve years and with nineteen other poets she has been an editor of the collectively run and collectively funded Subpress. In addition to writing poetry, she is partial to the short essay format and she self-publishes much of this work; pdfs can be found at people.mills.edu/jspahr.

The Marjorie Putnam Sinclair Edel Reading Series fund honors the memory of poet, novelist, biographer, and teacher Marjorie Putnam Sinclair Edel (1913-2005) and her lasting contributions to Hawai‘i’s and the University’s literary communities from 1935 into the twenty-first century. Celebrated authors in this Series read from their works and engage students, faculty, and the community in discussions about their writing—with a focus on poetry, Hawai‘i, and Hawaiian culture, three of Marjorie Putnam Sinclair Edel’s life-long interests.

Event Sponsor
Department of English, UH Manoa

More Information
Robert Sullivan, 9563075, robert.sullivan@hawaii.edu

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