Walk Like the Burning Chair Walks

The Burning Chair Readings
invite you to never be sad
w/

Frank Sherlock & David Shapiro

(Philly Style meets New York School)

celebrating the recent release of David Shapiro’s New and Selected Poems (1965-2006)
& the debut of Frank Sherlock’s Wounds in an Imaginary Nature Show

Friday, August 31st, 8PM
Jimmy’s No.43 Stage
43 East 7th Street
Between 2nd& 3rd
New York City

($5 donation suggested but not required)

David Shapiro’s New and Selected Poems (1965-2006) emerged from Overlook Press in 2007. In addition to his many books, Shapiro has published art criticism and poetry in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Artforum. He has received a fellowship from the National endowment for the Arts, the Zabel Prize for Experimental Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a nomination for a National Book Award in 1971. He has edited volumes of aesthetics, translated Alberti’s poems about Picasso, collaborated with Rudy Burckhardt on three films, and had a play produced at the Kitchen, co-authored with Stephen Paul Miller, called “Harrisburg Mon Amour or Two Boys on a Bus.” A professional violinist in his youth, he now writes in Riverdale, New York, where he lives with his wife Lindsay.

Frank Sherlock is the author of Wounds in an Imaginary Nature Show (Night Flag Press), Spring Diet of Flowers at Night (Mooncalf Press), ISO (furniture press) and 13 (Ixnay Press). Past collaborations include work with CAConrad, Jennifer Coleman, and sound artist Alex Welsh. Publication of his most recent collaborative poem with Brett Evans, entitled Ready-to-Eat Individual is forthcoming in the near future.

Michael Robins & Dara Wier @ The Fall Cafe

The Burning Chair Readings
don’t want you to let summer go without a fight,
so come out and hear fighting words from

Michael Robins & Dara Wier

Friday, August 7:30 PM
@ The Fall Café
307 Smith Street
between Union & President
Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
F/G to Carroll

Born in Portland, Oregon, Michael Robins is the author of The Next Settlement (University of North Texas Press, 2007), which was selected for the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry. He holds degrees from the University of Oregon and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and his poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Boston Review, The Cincinnati Review, Denver Quarterly, LUNA, Third Coast and elsewhere. He lives in Chicago and teaches at Columbia College. - Three poems in Typo

Dara Wier's books include Remnants of Hannah (Wave Books 2006); Reverse Rapture (Verse Press 2005); Hat on a Pond (Verse Press, 2002) and Voyages in English (Carnegie Mellon U. Press, 2001). A limited edition, (X in Fix), a selection of 5 longer poems, including a section from Reverse Rapture, is printed in RainTaxi’s Brainstorm series. Recent poems can be found in American Poetry Review, New American Writing, Volt, Massachusetts Review, The Melic, The Canary, Painted Bride Quarterly, Mississippi Review, slope, Hollins Critic, Seattle Review, Turnrow, Hunger Mountain, Cincinnati Review, Denver Quarterly, Octopus, Conduit, Crazyhorse, Court Green and Gulf Coast. She works as a member of the poetry faculty and director of the MFA program for poets and writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her book, Reverse Rapture has been recently awarded The Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives 2006 book of the year prize. - “Blue Oxen”

The Burning Chair Readings Fall 2007

@ The Fall Café, Fridays 7:30 PM
August 17^th - Michael Robins & Dara Wier
September 14^th - David Goldstein & Genya Turovskaya
October 12^th - Joseph Bradshaw & Ken Rumble
November 16^th - Paige Ackerson-Kiely, Lily Brown & Elizabeth Robinson

@ Jimmy’s No. 43 Stage, 8 PM
August 31^st - Frank Sherlock & David Shapiro
September 28^th - Dorothea Lasky & Laura Solomon
October 26^th - Cynthia Cruz & Karla Kelsey
November 30^th - Maureen Alsop & Jean Valentine

The Fall Café
307 Smith Street
between Union & President
Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn
F/G to Carroll

Jimmy’s No.43 Stage
43 East 7^th Street
between 2^nd & 3^rd Avenues
NYC

The Burning Chair Readings
contact: Matthew Henriksen
matt AT typomag DOT com

Born in Portland, Oregon, Michael Robins is the author of The Next Settlement (University of North Texas Press, 2007), which was selected for the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry. He holds degrees from the University of Oregon and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and his poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Boston Review, The Cincinnati Review, Denver Quarterly, LUNA, Third Coast and elsewhere. He lives in Chicago and teaches at Columbia College. - "My Life as an Edge of the Lawless Frontier" in Typo 6 - Two poems in Octopus

Dara Wier's books include Remnants of Hannah (Wave Books 2006); Reverse Rapture (Verse Press 2005); Hat on a Pond (Verse Press, 2002) and Voyages in English (Carnegie Mellon U. Press, 2001). A limited edition, (X in Fix), a selection of 5 longer poems, including a section from Reverse Rapture, is printed in RainTaxi’s Brainstorm series. Recent poems can be found in American Poetry Review, New American Writing, Volt, Massachusetts Review, The Melic, The Canary, Painted Bride Quarterly, Mississippi Review, slope, Hollins Critic, Seattle Review, Turnrow, Hunger Mountain, Cincinnati Review, Denver Quarterly, Octopus, Conduit, Crazyhorse, Court Green and Gulf Coast. She works as a member of the poetry faculty and director of the MFA program for poets and writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her book, Reverse Rapture has been recently awarded The Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives 2006 book of the year prize. - "Blue Oxen"

David B. Goldstein is the author of a chapbook, Been Raw Diction (Dusie), and his poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including The Paris Review, Jubilat, Typo, Epoch, Alice Blue Review, and Pinstripe Fedora. He recently joined the faculty of York University in Toronto, where he teaches Renaissance literature, creative writing, and food studies. - "Paysage" in Typo 9 - Three poems in Dusie

Genya Turovskaya is the author of the chapbook The Tides, recently published by Octopus Books. Her poetry and translations from Russian have appeared in Conjunctions, Chicago Review, jubilat, Landfall, A Public Space and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, and is an
editor at Ugly Duckling Presse. - "Pax"

Joseph Bradshaw was born in Caldwell, Idaho, and grew up up and down the west coast. From 2002 to 2006 he co-edited FO(A)RM Magazine and co-curated the Spare Room reading series in Portland. A chapbook, The Way Birds Become, was recently published by Weather Press. His poetry and reviews can be found in current or forthcoming issues of Cannibal, Cultural Society, Denver Quarterly, Jacket, Mirage #4 / Period(ical), and elsewhere. He currently lives in Iowa City, that hotbed of literary puke. - from The Way Birds Become

Ken Rumble is the author of Key Bridge (Carolina Wren Press, 2007) and marketing director of the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art. He is currently working on a book with his father about the earth's atmosphere & Antarctica. His poems have been published in Parakeet, Cutbank, Fascicle, Typo, Octopus, XConnect, Coconut, and others. - Two poems in Typo 8

Paige Ackerson-Kiely was born in October of 1975 at the behest of her parents in Biddeford, Maine. Her first book, In No One's Land won the 2006 Sawtooth Poetry Prize. She currently resides in Vermont, where she is employed selling wine, and is at work on a second manuscript of poems entitled My Love is a Dead Arctic Explorer, and a novel about infanticide. - Three poems in jubilat

Lily Brown holds an MFA from Saint Mary's College and currently lives in San Francisco. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Typo, Octopus, Fence, Cannibal, Tarpaulin Sky, Handsome and Coconut. - Octopus Books published her chapbook, The Renaissance Sheet, in early 2007. - "To a Tree" in Typo 9

Elizabeth Robinson is the author of 8 books of poetry, most recently Under That Silky Roof (Burning Deck Press) and Apostrophe (Apogee Press). The Orphan and its Relations is forthcoming from Fence Books in 2008. Robinson co-edits EtherDome Press and Instance Books and lives in Boulder, Colorado. - Two poems in Rain Taxi

David Shapiro’s New and Selected Poems (1965-2006) was released from Overlook Press in 2007. In addition to his many books, Shapiro has published art criticism and poetry in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Artforum. He has received a fellowship from the National endowment for the Arts, the Zabel Prize for Experimental Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a nomination for a National Book Award in 1971. He has edited volumes of aesthetics, translated Alberti’s poems about Picasso, collaborated with Rudy Burckhardt on three films, and had a play produced at the Kitchen called “Two Boys on the Bus.” A professional violinist in his youth, he now writes in Riverdale, New York, where he lives with his wife Lindsay. - Four poems in Lingo

Frank Sherlock is the author of Wounds in an Imaginary Nature Show (Night Flag Press), Spring Diet of Flowers at Night (Mooncalf Press), ISO (furniture press) and 13 (Ixnay Press). Past collaborations include work with CAConrad, Jennifer Coleman, and sound artist Alex Welsh. Publication of his most recent collaborative poem with Brett Evans, entitled Ready-to-Eat Individual is forthcoming in the near future. - from The City Real & Imagined: Philadelphia Poems

Dorothea Lasky was born in St. Louis, MO in 1978. Her first full-length collection, AWE (Wave Books), will be out in the fall of 2007. She is the author of three chapbooks: The Hatmaker's Wife (Braincase Press, 2006), Art (H_NGM_N Press, 2005), and Alphabets and Portraits (Anchorite Press, 2004). Her poems have appeared in jubilat, Crowd, 6x6, Boston Review, Delmar, Phoebe, Filter, Knock, Drill, Lungfull!, and Carve, among others. Currently, she lives in Philadelphia, where studies education at the University of Pennsylvania and co-edits the Katalanche Press chapbook series, along with the poet Michael Carr. She is a graduate of the MFA program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and also has been educated at Harvard University and Washington University. - Eight poems in the Boston Review

Laura Solomon was born in 1976 and grew up in the deep South. She studied Political Science and Literature at the University of Georgia in Athens, and later Creative Writing at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Her first book Bivouac was published by Slope Editions in 2002. Other publications include a chapbook, Letters by which Sisters Will Know Brothers (Katalanché Press 2005), and Haiku des Pierres / Haiku of Stones by Jaques Poullaouec, a translation from the French with Sika Fakambi (Apogée Press, 2006). Her second book of poetry Blue and Red Things has just been released by Ugly Duckling Presse. Currently she lives in Philadelphia where she works as a tutor and researcher for an adult literacy intervention program. - Five poems in Octopus

Cynthia Cruz was born in Germany and raised in Northern California. Her first book, Ruin, was published by Alice James Books in 2006. Her poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, Paris Review, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, and others, and are anthologized in Isn't it Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger Poets and The Iowa Anthology of New American Poetries. She is the recipient of several residencies to Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. She lives in New York City. - Two poems in Perihelion

Born and raised in Southern California, Karla Kelsey holds degrees from UCLA, The Iowa Writers Workshop, and The University of Denver. Her first book, Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary won the 2005 Sawtooth Poetry Prize judged by Carolyn Forché and was published in 2006 by Ahsahta Press. Her second full-length manuscript, Iteration Nets, is based in the sonnet form and is forthcoming from Ahsahta. Karla is also author of the chapbooks Little Dividing Doors in the Mind (Noemi Press, 2005) and Iterations (Pilot Press, forthcoming). Recent poems, essays, and reviews can be found in the Boston Review, Octopus, Five Fingers Review, Lit, and CAB/NET. - Four poems in the Boston Review

Maureen Alsop’s recent poems have appeared or are pending in various publications including: Barrow Street, Typo, Margie, Columbia : A Journal of Literature and Art and Texas Review. Her poetry was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She is the 2006 recipient of Harpur Palate's Milton Kessler Memorial Prize for Poetry and The Eleventh Muse 2006 poetry prize. Her first full collection of poetry Apparition Wren is available through Main Street Rag. - "The Naming" in Typo 9

Jean Valentine won the Yale Younger Poets Award for her first book, Dream Barker, in 1965. Her most recent collection, Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965 - 2003, won the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry. Author of eight additional books, Valentine has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and awards from the NEA, The Bunting Institute, The Rockefeller Foundation, The New York Council for the Arts, and The New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as the Maurice English Prize, the Teasdale Poetry Prize, and The Poetry Society of America's Shelley Memorial Prize. She has taught at Columbia, Sarah Lawrence College, NYU, and the 92nd St. Y, among other places. - from Door in the Mountain

Graham Foust. Necessary Stranger. Flood Editions: 2006.

Graham Foust’s third book, Necessary Stranger, is much like his previous books—minimal, stung out, and aimed at embracing whatever value he can find in the world —yet his new poems turn more than ever to thin, grim devotionals to observation. Trimmed down but not truncated or elusive, Foust seems determined, as Stevens begins The Necessary Angel, to “see the earth again.”

“Sob Poem” begins with a confessional: “Grief that we should be like this./I don’t hate you, broken gift.” The lines neither hide behind irony nor offer cathartic compensation. Though after emotional clarity, Foust is not afraid to embrace phrases with expressionist leanings. The obscurity of “Starting-to-cry’s a wire from/the mind to nowhere” results from an attempt to identify the tenuous and virtually unnamable bridge between sensory and emotive experience.

He doesn’t play around with the paradoxical circumstances of striving to put the unspeakable into words. Rather, Foust embraces the uncertainty: “The leaves are on their shadows.” In a manner similar to Blake’s flipping of reason and passion, Faust flips certainty and doubt to “see the earth again” as place were the only certainty is that knowing is tenuous. I find compensation (Emerson’s definition) in the reversal, in that adopted perspective parallel to my favorite Confucian axiom: “To know that you know what you know, and to know that you do not know what you do not know, that is true wisdom.”

In “Panama,” Foust begins with one of Stevens’ favorite tropes: “Fruit thumps in the pointless/grass, has no hand in itself.” Foust, unlike Stevens, does not use the sensuality of the apple as a critique of religion but as an observed phenomenon elucidating the predicament of recognizing the possibility of one’s own meaninglessness.

If only I couldn’t
understand, I’d imagine
some sarcastic new Christ and say
something someone would say.

Turning the expected “could” into “couldn’t,” Foust admits that what he knows necessitates doubt far more readily than what he doesn’t know allows for faith. Although it’s not a defense of religion, “some sarcastic new Christ” critiques the abundant abuse of irony and the resulting emptiness of “some” (as opposed to Foust’s literal application of “nowhere”). Foust continually identifies suffering as the basis of experiential investigation (“Pain is okay—/it’s the practical/that murders”). Our “practical” ideologies and self-defenses inhibit our capacities for experience.

Engagement with the literal and person, however, often leaves poets susceptible to sentimental slip-ups. “Marital” begins with Foust bending ordinary language into new sound-driven resonances: “To have and have and//have and how/could you not//stop blossoming.” Riffing on “to have” is appropriate, if not predictable, but “blossoming” is an easy a word to throw in and far too symbolic to fit with Foust’s usually precise language. The poem goes on to beautifully crude statements, maybe intended to undercut the melodrama:

Some days I can’t feel
much of anything. Others
I come so
hard I think
I’ve bled.

He also says, “Our city’s a list/of its pissed-//out-of windows.” Instead of synthesizing the blossoming and the piss, nearing the end of the poems Foust reverts to symbolic purity: “You break into belief./I lie and climb into tears.” I’ll take a few bleary lines like that, though, over a book pat with ironic and imagistic evasions. Most of my favorite books read like that.

The book’s final poem, “Clouds,” offers a synthesis of sentimental daring and hardened clarity. “Such things/as laws fall on us,” the poem begins. At once Foust accepts the inevitability of “the practical/that murders” and undermines it, as an apple thumping “in the pointless/grass, has no hand in itself.” Like law and grief, though, knowing falls to us as well: “There/are nameless shapes./There are tears of understanding.” A young poet with Foust’s immense skills might smartly veer from statements leaning toward the sentimental, but Foust has brought his craft to a vision that, as Stevens charged, can “help people live their lives.”

--Matthew Henriksen