CONVERGENCE ON POETICS IV

Saturday night after dinner at the Alehouse and quite a bit of time being lost in Bothell, it was back to the event center for the second night of poetry readings. 

Sunday morning I was moderator for a panel titled Poetics, Affirmation, and Dissensus, with Amaranth Borsuk (a new faculty member at our host institution), Elizabeth Frost and Cynthia Hogue.  Second panel of the morning brought us Jeanne Heuving, who organized the conference, Peter O'Leary and Lissa Wolsak on Poetics and the Medium of Language. Noontime began the second series of short postings, during which my grad school prof David McAleavey, with a title out of Lenin, talked about What to Do -- at the close of which he did it -- 

This is Larry Sammons.  He wasn't at the conference. Larry's the director of exhibits and facilities at the zoo in Seattle, and knows a few things about media poetics. I've known him since I was twelve years old, and we spent a few hours after the conference doing what we did back then, with better instruments these days, before I had to head out to the airport.

CONVERGENCE ON POETICS III

Saturday started out with a panel on poetics and new media (Clark Lunberry, Joe Milutis and Ron Silliman), and Poetics and Other Arts (Rebecca Cummins, Ted Hiebert and Barrett Watten).  After lunch and general hanging out, there was a second session on poetics and other arts featuring Charlie Altieri, Lyn Hejinian and Brian Reed.  The afternoon brought us to the first of the "postings" sessions, shorter presentations by individuals and groups that ranged from the weighty to the disembodied.  Niko Vassilakis shared the new LAST VISPO ANTHOLOGY with us, a book that will get a lot of attention, though my old friend and publisher Crag Hill wasn't able to join Niko as planned for the posting.

Left to Right: Rebecca Brown, David McAleavey, Aldon Nielsen (recognizable by the Taylor Guitars cap). Rebecca and I were both studying at George Washington University at the same time.  To this day I remember her reading the first draft of a great piece on Annie Oakley. Poet David McAleavey was a professor to both of us.  This was the first time we'd all three been in the same place together since about 1985.