POETRY IS COMING / TO THE AWP

At some point when I was being inattentive, the Association formerly known as the AWP became the "Association of Writers & Writing Programs," thus enacting a sort of Whitmanian barbaric awwp. But, despite the introduction of an additional "W," it appears the AWWP still goes by the initials "AWP."

I got to this year's conclave in time to hear the reading and conversation featuring Rae Armantrout, and to get the expected bad news that Ed Roberson was among the many frozen in place in Chicago.

Later that evening I made my way over to the Four Seasons Hotel, site of previous MLA off-site readings, for my first AWP Off-Site of the year. (In contrast to the MLA, during the AWP the entire city becomes one continuous off-site reading. Where the MLA gives us nervous young professors hurriedly editing their papers in the coffee shops, the AWP is a flutter with writers trading books with each other and hunching over their laptops to improve their scansion.) The Four Seasons was again the venue for a Bridge Street Books sponsored event, featuring poetry readings by Anselm Berrigan, Timothy Donnely, Robert Fernandez, Cathy Park Hong, Ish Klein, K. Selim Mohammed, Chris Nealon, Mel Nichols, Elizabeth Willis, Mathew Zapruder, and the aforementioned Rae Armantrout. At some point I'll be posting a recording of the evening to Penn Sound, so keep an eye out for that announcement.