M i d - M a n h a t t
a n L i b r a r y
Presents
Art
and Poetry
A Poetry Reading and Slide Presentation
with
Stephen
Spretnjak
Johannes
VanDerBeek
Geoffrey
Young
Bill
Zavatsky
Monday April 27, 2009
6:30 p.m. on the 6th floor
Mid-Manhattan Library
The New York Public Library
40th Street and 5th Avenue
New York, NY
10016
212-340-0871
Elevators access the
6th floor after 6p.m.
All events are FREE and subject to last minute change or
cancellation.
In celebration of Poem in Your
Pocket Day, the Art Collection is pleased to present an evening of poetry and
art. Bill Zavatsky will read his poems followed by his translations of Andre
Breton and Robert Desnos. Geoffrey Young will read his poems and selections
from Francis Picabia’s poems. Johannes VanDerBeek will read poems by his father
Stan VanDerBeek accompanied by images from this filmmaker’s work. Stephen
Spretnjak will project his film works accompanied by readings of his poems
followed by his translations of Valentine de Saint-Point's Poems of Love from
The Metropolitan Opera House 1917.
Stephen
Spretnjak is an artist who has been collecting the poems of
artists/poets since 1989, and has created Poetic Investigations an archive of
works by 400 people with about 80 still in research mode. His interest is in
experiencing those spontaneous moments as the tangibility of the world becomes
a flickering light breathed into the material mass of objects. During these
circumstantial moments, the experience is magnified to the point of
hallucination.
Johannes
VanDerBeek and his sister Sara are artists who operate Guild &
Greyshkul Gallery in SOHO. Johannes will read
poems by his father Stan VanDerBeek (1917-1984) accompanied by images of this
experimental filmmaker (who has used up to eight projectors to cast his moving
images on overlapping screens). Johannes’ work is represented by Zach Feuer
Gallery (LFL) in Chelsea.
Geoffrey Young has
taught at Columbia University, SF State University, SUNY Albany, UC
Berkley, Vassar College,
and Yale University. His small press, The Figures
(1975-2005), published more than 125 books of poetry, fiction, and art writing.
Several of his own poetry books including Lights Out and Fickle Sonnets have
been illustrated by artists Donald Baechler, Carroll Dunham and James Siena. He
has curated over 60 exhibitions in the past seventeen years.
Bill Zavatsky teaches
at the Trinity School
in Manhattan
and his latest collection of poems, Where X Marks the Spot, was published in
2006. He is the recipient of several awards including a 2008-2009 Guggenheim
Fellowship in Poetry and the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize for
his translations of Earthlight: Poems by Andre Breton. He has also published translations of Robert
Desnos’ poems.
__________________________________________________________________
Mail submissions to