Network February News

Exciting Lunch Poems news, brought to us by Andrew Epstein's incomparable blog, Locus Solus: O'Hara's 1964 book, along with Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems is at number 2 on GQ's 'hot guy books' list. There's more at Locus Solus - enjoy!

Rowland Bagnall's new collection, Near-Life Experience, will be out with Carcanet in March in the UK, and in May in the US. The poems in Near-Life Experience are curious about the present moment, its weather and animals, its objects and things. They want to make it real in language, catching it before it vanishes. Documenting landscapes, paintings, insects and trees, Near-Life Experience offers a world where understanding is subverted by the day’s distractions and the unexpected shapes of the imagination.

On 28th February, 7pm London time, join Carcanet Press to celebrate the online launch of Sleepers Awake by Oli Hazzard. Oli will be joined by Jess Cotton for an evening of readings, discussion and audience Q&A. Register here.

Edge Books has just published Simon Schuchat's collage poem sequence The Centos, a book that according to Jordan Davis makes you want to write, re-read it, and 'read everything in the world with a pencil ready to make exclamation marks in the margin.' For Maureen Owen it is a 'brilliant obfuscation', whilst for Charles Bernstein it is ' a grand commentary on the human comedy.' Simon read with Murat Nemet-Nejat and Vyt Bakaitis at the Bowery Poetry Club on Feb. 6th, as part of the New York Poets series of readings, further details of which can be found here.

To order your copy of The Miraculous Season: Selected Poems by V.R. ‘Bunny’ Lang, edited by Rosa Campbell, with 25% off the cover price and free UK postage, go to www.carcanet.co.uk and at the checkout enter the code: BUNNY25 (offer ends 29th Feb).

Alice Notley will be reading at Keble College on February 22nd, for the Poets at Keble series organized by Matt Bevis.

Rona Cran will join Forward Prize-winning poet and novelist Luke Kennard at Voce Books in Birmingham, on Wednesday 21st February, to launch (belatedly!) I Remember Kim (Verve Poetry Press). Further details here.

Mae Losasso is launching Poetry, Architecture, and the New York School: Something Like a Liveable Space (Palgrave Macmillan, Dec 2023) on Thursday 15th Feb at Ed Cross Gallery, 19 Garrett Street, London, EC1Y 0TY from 6pm. She’ll be in conversation with Matthew Holman, followed by a Q&A and a glass of something sparkly.

On February 6th, 6-8.30pm (EST) Patricia Spears Jones, alongside Margo Jefferson, will be in conversation with Courtney Thorsson, at Columbia's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, talking about Thorsson's The Sisterhood: How Black Women Writers Changed American Culture. More details here.

CFP: Words and Worlds: Languages and Ecologies symposium – 22 March 2024 ( Royal Holloway, University of London (in person)): The Words and Worlds symposium will explore the possibilities of language as an intermediary between humans, plants, animals, and other nonhuman beings. This event responds to the themes of the Words from the Wild exhibition of visual and material ecopoetry currently on show at Royal Holloway’s Egham campus. Professor Simon Morris (Leeds School of Art; Inscription Journal) is confirmed as a keynote speaker. Papers (15 minutes), lightning talks and readings/showings of creative practice are invited on subjects including multi-sensory poetics, translation, language loss and diversity. Please see the attached CFP for details. Deadline for abstracts/proposals: Friday 9 February 2024. 
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Comics and Modernism: History, Form, and Culture, edited by Jonathan Najarian, has an essay in it by Nick Sturm, describing Joe Brainard's comics in the 1960s & '70s and the many connections between little magazines, comics, & underground newspapers.
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We were sorry to note the passing of Lev Rubinstein, the great Moscow conceptualist – a writer whose work has spiritual resonance with the New York School aesthetic.