To begin ...

As the twentieth century fades out
the nineteenth begins
.......................................again
it is as if nothing happened
though those who lived it thought
that everything was happening
enough to name a world for & a time
to hold it in your hand
unlimited.......the last delusion
like the perfect mask of death

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

"Jerome Rothenberg @ 80: A Celebration"

[official announcement]

CUNY Center for the Humanities (New York)

Friday, December 9
Martin E. Segal Theater
CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue
(diagonally across from the Empire State Building)
6pm (sharp) to about 10:00pm

Poet, translator, editor, anthologist, Jerome Rothenberg is joined by friends and collaborators for an exploration of his influential work. Papers on, and celebrations of, Rothenberg’s work will be presented by Susan Howe, Homero Aridjis, Carolee Schneemann, Anne Waldman, Bruce Andrews & Sally Silvers, Jeffrey Robinson, Pete Monaco, Charles Morrow, Anne Tardos, George Economou, Rochelle Owens, Robert Kelly, Al Filreis, Monica de la Torre, Ernesto Livon-Grosman, Nicole Peyrafitte, Lee Ann Brown & Tony Torn, Mark Weiss, Peter Cockelbergh, Ligorano-Reees, Danny Snelson, Heriberto Yépez, Charles Bernstein, Pierre Joris, Hiroaki Sato, and Diane Rothenberg.

The evening will end with a reading by Jerome Rothenberg.

Organized and hosted by Pierre Joris and Charles Bernstein.

In conjunction with the event, Steve Clay, of Granary Books, will curate a retrospective exhibit of works by Jerome Rothenberg. Included will be examples of books and magazines with which Rothenberg was directly involved as editor/publisher, such as Hawk's Well Press, "Poems from the Floating World", "Some/Thing," "New Wilderness Letter" and “Alcheringa”; the remarkable series of anthologies he edited from "Technicians of the Sacred" to "Poems for the Millennium"; selections from his more than sixty published pamphlets and books, to an array of his collaborations with artists including Ian Tyson, Susan Bee and Arman. 

Charlie Morrow will also have an exhibit of his many audio collaborations with Rothenberg.

1 comment:

WAS said...

Fabulous tribute tonight! Happy birthday, Jerry (from someone who turned 50 two days ago).


And why can’t I live
With the cavemen and vagabonds
Sharing wordless screams that they call poems?

Why can’t I look
To the dead and to the darkness
For the words they need to speak to me today?

If you’re patient enough
A poem eventually comes from the iguana’s mouth.

Are we ever large enough
For even the smallest of poems?
You wouldn’t know, weaving all
Into The book, the long-dreamt endless book,
The prayer that never ends, the voice that
Never strays from its beginnings –

One tribe when every person is a wolf
--who dreams that? That night could unify like that?
Who shows that day can be dismantled
By pulling plugs out of its sockets?

So easy, do you do this,
As if – the way you look at us – we did it all.