Back once more to the University of Louisville and the conference formerly known as the Twentieth Century Literature Conference. It was almost as if I had never left my own campus, as there are two Penn State PhDs on the faculty there, and, in addition to our usual large contingent of panelists, two of this year's keynoters were Penn State faculty. During the party at Alan Golding's house after the conference, someone asked me why our department is so cool. Hey, we've got more of that in State College. (Another reason all of you should come to our conference on African American and Caribbean poetry in October.) First up was Jayne Marcus, who I hadn't seen in decades, who shared letters she had received from Adrienne Rich.
My own presentation this year was a return to the works of Russell Atkins, centering on the Cleveland Poets' Manifesto and the three chapbooks by Atkins under the title Objects. What I presented was drawn from an essay for an edited collection featuring Atkins's works and commentaries on his art. Watch this space for further news of that volume as it develops.
