Our fall/winter 2020 CLOSE READINGS IN A VIRTUAL SPACE season features poets Todd Colby, Tracie Morris, Rosamond S. King, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, and Divya Victor (pictured left to right below). This series funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

This participatory virtual series, which took place via Zoom, featured some of our favorite poets leading intimate, virtual group read-throughs of single poems. The poets—neither teaching nor explaining—served as expert tour-guides for participants to explore the featured poem as a group. Whether participants were already well-versed in the close reading of poems, or had never been quite sure they’d been "getting it," CLOSE READINGS IN A VIRTUAL SPACE provided a digital gathering for everyone to take a refreshing deep dive into a single poem. Each event lasted about an hour and concluded with a brief reading of poetry by our special guest poet.



Divya Victor Leads a Close Reading of Emily Jungmin Yoon

On Thursday, December 3rd, 2020 Divya Victor led a reading-through of Emily Jungmin Yoon’s “Bell Theory”“Bell Theory” (click to read poem)

Divya Victor is the author of Curb (Nightboat Books, forthcoming); Kith, a book of verse, prose memoir, lyric essay and visual objects (Fence Books/ Book*hug); Natural Subjects (Trembling Pillow, Winner of the Bob Kaufman Award), Unsub (Insert Blanc), and Things To Do With Your Mouth (Les Figues). Her work has been collected in numerous venues, including BOMB, the New Museum’s The Animated Reader, Crux: Journal of Conceptual Writing, The Best American Experimental Writing, POETRY, and boundary2. Her work has been translated into French, German, Spanish, and Czech. She has been a Mark Diamond Research Fellow at the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum, a Riverrun Fellow at the Archive for New Poetry at U.C. San Diego, and a Writer-in-Residence at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibit (L.A.C.E.). Her work has been performed and installed at MoCA in Los Angeles, The National Gallery of Singapore, L.A.C.E., and MoMA. She has been an editor at Jacket2, Ethos Books , Invisible Publishing (Canada) and Book*hug Press. She is currently Associate Professor of English at Michigan State University.

Rachel Blau DuPlessis Leads a Close Reading of George Oppen

On Thursday, November 19th, 2020, Rachel Blau DuPlessis led a reading-through of George Oppen’s “The Translucent Mechanics” (click to read poem)

Poet, critic, and collagist Rachel Blau DuPlessis is the author of the multi-volume long poem Drafts (1986-2012), from Salt Publishing and Wesleyan, the subject of several critical studies. Her recent book is Late Work (Black Square Editions, 2020) from the series Traces, with Days, including Days and Works (Ahsahta Editions, 2017) and Around the Day in 80 Worlds (BlazeVOX, 2018). In-print collage-poems are Graphic Novella (Xexoxial Editions, 2015) and Numbers (Materialist Press, 2018). She has published a number of books on gender and poetics, including the trilogy The Pink Guitar, Blue Studios, and Purple Passages, and has co-edited several anthologies and edited The Selected Letters of George Oppen. She lives in Philadelphia.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Julian Talamantez Brolaski Leads a Close Reading of an Anonymous Medieval Poem

On Thursday, November 5th, 2020, Julian Talamantez Brolaski led a reading-through of the anonymous medieval poem “Foweles in the Frith” (click to read poem)

Julian Talamantez Brolaski is the author of Of Mongrelitude (Wave Books 2017), Advice for Lovers (City Lights 2012), gowanus atropolis (Ugly Duckling Presse 2011), and the co-editer of NO GENDER: Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards (Litmus/Belladonna 2009). Julian is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of Juan & the Pines, which recently released its first EP, Glittering Forest (2019). Julian lives in Goleta, California.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

ROSAMOND S. KING LEADS A CLOSE READING OF NATALIE DIAZ

On Thursday, October 22nd, 2020, Rosamond S. King Led a reading-through (via Zoom) of Natalie Diaz’s “My Brother at 3 A.M.” (click to read poem)

Rosamond S. King is a critical and creative writer and artist. Her poetry collections include the Lambda Award-winning Rock | Salt | Stone (Nightboat Books 2017), and the forthcoming All the Rage (Nightboat, 2021). King has also been published in more than three dozen journals and anthologies, has performed widely at spaces such as Poets House, the African Performance Art Biennale and the Encuentro Performance Festival. Her book Island Bodies: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination won the 2015 Caribbean Studies Association Gordon K and Sybil Lewis Prize for the best Caribbean Studies Book. Her scholarship has also appeared in many journals including Callaloo, The Journal of West Indian Literature, and Women and Performance. She is also the recipient of numerous fellowships, awards and creative residencies, and teaches courses in Caribbean and African literature, creative writing, sexuality, performance, and immigrant literature at Brooklyn College.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

TRACIE MORRIS LEADS A CLOSE READING OF ANGELA JACKSON

On Thursday, October 8th, 2020, Tracie Morris led a reading-through (via Zoom) of Angela Jackson’s “Miz Rosa Rides the Bus” (click to read poem)

Born in Brooklyn, interdisciplinary poet and sound artist Tracie Morris earned an MFA at Hunter College and a PhD at New York University. She studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and at Michael Howard Studios. Her poetry collections include handholding: 5 kinds (2016), Rhyme Scheme (2012), and Intermission (1998), and is featured in anthologies including The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind (2015), The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (2015), and An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art (2002). With Charles Bernstein, she co-edited Best American Experimental Writing (2016). Her sound installations have been presented at the Whitney Biennial, MoMA, the Jamaica Center for Arts &Learning, and other sites. She leads the Tracie Morris Band and is a lead singer for Terraplane. Morris won championships for the Nuyorican Grand Slam and the National Haiku Slam, and has received numerous additional honors, including grants from NYFA, Creative Capital, and the Asian Cultural Council. She has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a CPCW poetics fellow, and Pratt Institute, where she is a professor in humanities and media studies. 

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

TODD COLBY LEADS A CLOSE READING OF JOHN ASHBERY

On Thursday, September 24th, 2020, Todd Colby led a reading-through (via Zoom) of John Ashbery’s “By Guess and By Gosh” (click to read poem)

Poet and visual artist Todd Colby attended the University of Iowa, where he and fellow students started the band Drunken Boat in the 1980s. He moved to New York City to attend graduate school at Brooklyn College before Drunken Boat began touring and releasing CDs. His first poetry collection, Ripsnort, was published in 1994, followed by Cush (1995), Riot in the Charm Factory (1999), Tremble & Shine (2004), and Splash State (2014). The New York School poets, punk rock, spoken-word poetry, John Ashbery, and the modernists, including William Carlos Williams and Gertrude Stein, all influenced his poetry. Colby has served on the board of directors of the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, where he also taught workshops. He has collaborated with artists Marianne Vitale and David Lantow and edited the anthology Heights of the Marvelous: A New York Anthology (2000). Colby wrote a poem a day about the 2012 Tour de France for Bicycling magazine online.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

KAZIM ALI LEADS A CLOSE READING OF SUSAN HOWE

Thursday, July 16th, 2020 (via Zoom), Kazim Ali led a close reading of Susan Howe’s “Silence Wager Stories” (click to read the poem)

Kazim Ali’s poetry collections include The Far Mosque (2005), which won Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award, The Fortieth Day (2008), Sky Ward (2013), and Inquisition (2018). His prose includes The Disappearance of Seth (2009), Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (2009), Resident Alien: On Border-crossing and the Undocumented Divine (2015), Anaïs Nin: An Unprofessional Study (Agape Editions, 2017), and the essay collection Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies (2018). He is also the author of the novel Quinn’s Passage (2005), named one of the Best Books of 2005 by Chronogram magazine, and the experimental novel, written as a musical score, The Secret Room: A String Quartet (Kaya Press, 2017). He has translated Marguerite Duras’s Abahn Sabana David (2016) and When the Night Agrees to Speak to Me (forthcoming December 2020) by Ananda Devi. In 2003 Ali co-founded Nightboat Books and continues to serve as an editor with the press. Ali has been a regular columnist for the American Poetry Review and a contributing editor for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Writer’s Chronicle. He is currently professor of Literature and Writing at the University of California, San Diego.

DARA WIER LEADS A CLOSE READING OF MARIANNE MOORE

Thursday, July 2nd, 2020 (via Zoom), Dara Wier led a close reading of Marianne Moore’s “When I Buy Pictures” (click to read the poem)

Dara Wier has received honors from The Lannan Foundation, The Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, American Poetry Archive and Center, and the American Poetry Review. Author of thirteen poetry collections, including recently In the Still of the Night (Wave Books 2017), and soon Tolstoy Killed Anna Karenina also from Wave Books. She lives and works in North Amherst Massachusetts and teaches poetry workshops for the University of Massachusetts MFA for Poets & Writers.

LUCY IVES LEADS A CLOSE READING OF MADELINE GINS

Thursday, June 25th, 2020 (via Zoom), Lucy Ives led a close reading of excerpts from WORD RAIN (click to read the excerpt), followed by a short reading of her own poetry.

Lucy Ives was born in New York City and earned a BA from Harvard University, an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a PhD in comparative literature from New York University. Her first collection, the book-length poem Anamnesis (2009), won the Slope Editions Book Prize. Ives is also the author of the full-length novels, Impossible Views of the World (2017) and Loudermilk: Or, the Real Poet; Or, the Origin of the World (2019); the “brief novel” nineties (2013); a poetry and essay collection, Orange Roses (2013); along with several other poetry and short prose collections, including The Hermit (2016). Ives is the editor of The Saddest Thing Is That I Have Had to Use Words: A Madeline Gins Reader (Siglio Press, 2020). She has been awarded an Iowa Arts fellowship, a MacCracken fellowship, and a Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. A former editor of Triple Canopy, Ives has written for Art in America, Artforum, The Believer, frieze, Granta, and Vogue, among other publications. She lives in Vermont.

This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

SIMONE WHITE LEADS A CLOSE READING OF LESLIE SCALAPINO

Thursday, May 28th, 2020 (via Zoom), poet Simone White led a close reading of Leslie Scalapino’s “A Sequence” (click to read the poem), followed by a short reading of her own poetry.

Simone White is the author of Dear Angel of Death, Of Being Dispersed, and House of Envy of All the World, the poetry chapbook Unrest, and the collaborative poem/painting chapbook Dolly, with Kim Thomas. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in New York.

This event marks the 10th anniversary of the passing of poet Leslie Scalapino.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

RIGOBERTO GONZÁLEZ LEADS A CLOSE READING OF JAY WRIGHT

Thursday, May 14th, 2020 (via Zoom), poet Rigoberto González led a close reading of Jay Wright's "The Homecoming Singer" (click to read the poem), followed by a short reading of his own poetry.

Rigoberto González is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Book of Ruin (Four Way Books). His twelve books of prose include two bilingual children's books, the three young adult novels, and the memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, which received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. He also edited Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing, Alurista's new and selected Xicano Duende: A Select Anthology, a 2019 Ploughshares, and has received Guggenheim, NEA and USA Rolón fellowships, a NYFA poetry grant, Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Prize, Lambda Literary Award for Poetry, and the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award, The Poetry Center Book Award, and the Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award. Currently, he is professor of English and director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey. In 2015, he received The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle. In 2020, he received the PEN/Voelcker Award. www.rigobertogonzalez.com

PATRICIA SPEARS JONES LEADS A CLOSE READING OF GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Thursday, April 30th, 2020 (via Zoom), poet Patricia Spears Jones led a close reading of Gwendolyn Brook’s "The Lovers of the Poor" (click to read the poem), followed by a short reading of her own poetry.

Patricia Spears Jones, an African American poet, playwright, anthologist, educator and cultural activist, won the 2017 Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers. She is author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems and 10 other poetry collections. Her work is anthologized in Of Poetry and Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin; BAX: Best American Experimental Writing, 2016: 2017 Pushcart Prize XLI, Best of Small Presses; and Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry. Poems have recently appeared in The New Yorker, Dark Matter: Women Witnessing, Ms. Muse, Plume, Persimmon Tree, and CUTTHROAT: A Journal of the Arts. She edited THINK: Poems for Aretha Franklin Inauguration Day Hat and Ordinary Women: An Anthology of New York City Women Poets. She is a literary programs curator and a former Program Coordinator for The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, organizer of the American Poets Congress. and a Senior Fellow Emeritus of the Black Earth Institute. She is currently the Louis D. Rubin Writer-in-Resident at Hollins University.  www.psjones.com

MARCELLA DURAND LEADS A CLOSE READING OF JOHN ASHBERY

Thursday, April 16, 2020 (via Zoom), poet Marcella Durand led a group close reading of John Ashbery's "Unusual Precautions" (click to read the poem), followed by a short reading of her own poetry.

Marcella Durand's most recent books include The Prospect from Delete Press (2020) and her translation of Michèle Métail's book-length poem, Earth's Horizons (Black Square Editions, 2020). Other publications include Rays of the Shadow (Tent Editions, 2017); Le Jardin de M. (The Garden of M.), with French translations by Olivier Brossard (joca seria, 2016); Deep Eco Pré, a collaboration with Tina Darragh, (Little Red Leaves); AREA (Belladonna); and Traffic & Weather (Futurepoem), written during a residency at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She is currently working on a new book-length poem, forthcoming from Black Square Editions.

Installations & Exhibits

Incident Report: REPORTS

Incident Report, the storefront display windows of The Flow Chart Foundation (located at 348 Warren Street, in Hudson, NY), offers an interface with the many publics of the street, showcases concepts and issues generated by artists and social thinkers. Incident Report has presented formally arranged projects as well as improvised situations for more than a decade. The current (running through August 2021) Reports series features an LED publication series displaying poetry, notation, transcription, weather reports, manifestos, public address, inventories, event scores, recipes, news, elegies, missives, codes, prayers, instructions, lyrics and more, sometimes paired with art or object installations. Complete details of this ongoing, regularly changing installation can be found here.

Poetry at the Hudson, NY Amtrak Train Station—November - January, 2020

In collaboration with CREATE (Council for Resources to Enrich the Arts, Technology, and Education), we’ve been installing great poetry in the Hudson, NY Amtrak station. Starting November 15th, 2020, we’re featuring work by three great poets—June Jordan, Jericho Brown, and Victoria Chang—all published by Copper Canyon Press (thank you, Copper Canyon for granting permissions!).

For the complete series, visit our Amtrak Poetry page.

Poetry at the Hudson, NY Amtrak Train Station—September - November, 2020

In collaboration with CREATE (Council for Resources to Enrich the Arts, Technology, and Education), we’ve been installing great poetry in the Hudson, NY Amtrak station. Starting September 15th, 2020, we’re featuring work by three great poets—Natalie Diaz, Ilya Kaminsky, and Danez Smith—all published by Graywolf Press (thank you, Graywolf for granting permissions!).

For the complete series, visit our Amtrak Poetry Page.

LITANY

Hudson Area Library, Hudson, NY

Poem by John Ashbery / Theatre concept and music score by Jeffrey Lependorf

Featuring Anselm Berrigan and Kyle Dacuyan, with Mark Allen and Jeffrey Lependorf

A featured presentation of the second annual HUDSON EYE festival.

On September 3rd, 2020, poets Anselm Berrigan and Kyle Dacuyan performed the joyously intimate, simultaneous columns of “Litany,” John Ashbery’s monumental meditation on knowing, memory, and presence with the audience seated in between them. At the same time, Jeffrey Lependorf and Mark Allen of The Flow Chart Foundation played selections from Ashbery’s own LP collection by following a chance-determined score created by Lependorf with the help of the John Cage Trust. The performers and the audience, all socially-distanced, all wore masks throughout this live, pandemic era performance.

LITANY was live-broadcast/streamed on Wave Farm Radio: WGXC 90.7–FM / wavefarm.org/listen. Listen to the archived recording here. Read the full Program.

Incident Report Viewing Station at The Flow Chart Foundation—August/September, 2020

Incident Report, an experimental viewing station offering an interface between the many publics of the street, showcases concepts and issues generated by artists and social thinkers. This storefront space of The Flow Chart Foundation has engaged in formally arranged projects as well as improvised situations in Hudson over the last decade. Developing and evolving with the changing conversations of Hudson, Incident Report presents thought-provoking work that connects artists with the community.

On view from August through mid-September, 2020, a stereoscopic installation of Part I of Ashbery’s “Litany” (from As We Know, 1978), created by The Flow Chart Foundation’s Mark Allen and Jeffrey Lependorf to complement the September 3rd live performance and live-stream of “Litany” for the Hudson Eye Festival (see below).

Poetry at the Hudson, NY Amtrak Train Station—Starting July, 2020

Starting July, 2020, The Flow Chart Foundation, in partnership with CREATE (Council for Resources in Art, Technology, and Education), will be periodically featuring poetry in three glass display cases that line the waiting area walls of Hudson, NY’s historic train.

We launched the series with an installation of a John Ashbery poem that invites us to imagine breaking through to new possibilities—“Down by the Station, Early in the Morning” (from A Wave, 1984).

Incident Report Viewing Station at The Flow Chart Foundation—July, 2020

Incident Report, an experimental viewing station offering an interface between the many publics of the street, showcases concepts and issues generated by artists and social thinkers. This storefront space of The Flow Chart Foundation has engaged in formally arranged projects as well as improvised situations in Hudson over the last decade. Developing and evolving with the changing conversations of Hudson, Incident Report presents thought-provoking work that connects artists with the community.

We are currently featuring poetry by two African American women:

Lucille Clifton (1936 - 2010)

Lucille Clifton was discovered as a poet by Langston Hughes, who published Clifton's poetry in his highly influential anthology, The Poetry of the Negro (1970). Awarding the prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize to Clifton in 2007, the judges remarked that “One always feels the looming humaneness around Lucille Clifton’s poems—it is a moral quality that some poets have and some don’t.” Clifton was the first author to have two books of poetry chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir, 1969-1980 (1987) and Next: New Poems (1987). Her collection Two-Headed Woman (1980) was also a Pulitzer nominee and won the Juniper Prize from the University of Massachusetts. She served as the state of Maryland’s poet laureate from 1974 until 1985, and won the prestigious National Book Award for Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems, 1988-2000. 

Rosamond S. King 

Rosamond S. King is a critical and creative writer and artist. Her poetry collections include the Lambda Award-winning Rock | Salt | Stone (Nightboat Books 2017), and the forthcoming All the Rage (Nightboat, 2021). King has also been published in more than three dozen journals and anthologies, has performed widely at spaces such as Poets House, the African Performance Art Biennale and the Encuentro Performance Festival. Her book Island Bodies: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination won the 2015 Caribbean Studies Association Gordon K and Sybil Lewis Prize for the best Caribbean Studies Book. Her scholarship has also appeared in many journals including Callaloo, The Journal of West Indian Literature, and Women and Performance. She is also the recipient of numerous fellowships, awards and creative residencies, and teaches courses in Caribbean and African literature, creative writing, sexuality, performance, and immigrant literature at Brooklyn College.

UN-SILENCING THE OPERA HOUSE

During the 2020 pandemic, and in celebration of Poetry Month, The Flow Chart Foundation partnered with Hudson Hall, home of the Hudson Opera House, to create a poetry installation featuring texts from Ashbery’s “The Recital” (from Three Poems) to be enjoyed by safely distanced walkers-by. Excerpts from the poem filled six large display windows on the front of the opera house as a means to “un-silence” the opera house through poetry.

GEOMETRY OF SHADOWS: THE ITALIAN POETRY OF GIORGIO DE CHIRICO

Thursday, December 12th, 2019 at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in NYC, we joined forces with A Public Space Books to present this bilingual reading and discussion around the Italian poetry of Giorgio de Chirico, featuring translator and poet Stefania Heim and art writer and poet John Yau. De Chirico was a painter and writer of tremendous importance to John Ashbery. Read the full press release here.

Note: The video below is partial; the audio recording is the complete program, including audience questions.

A CELEBRATION OF RAYMOND ROUSSEL: THE ALLEY OF FIREFLIES AND OTHER STORIES

Our second public event took place on Thursday, April 25th, 2019 at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in NYC, a celebration of Raymond Roussel: The Alley of Fireflies and Other Stories, translated by Mark Ford and published by The Song Cave, featuring a discussion and readings by Mark Polizzotti and Trevor Winkfield, with a cameo reading by Charles North, moderated by Jeffrey Lependorf. Mark Ford, who could not attend the event in person, provided this introduction, which was read by Trevor Winkfield.

Performances

FLOW CHART CABARET CINEMA: A NIGHT OF NEO-BENSHI

The Flow Chart Foundation initiated it’s public programs by partnering with Hudson Hall to present its first public event—Flow Chart Cabaret Cinema: A Night of Neo-Benshi—offered as a love letter to John Ashbery and featuring an Ashberian evening of poets theater that commingled poetry, theatre and film. It took place on Friday, April 5th, 2019 AT Hudson Hall in Hudson, NY. The evening featured neo-benshi performances by Anselm Berrigan, Shanekia McIntosh, Joan Retallack, and Jeffrey Lependorf, as well as a special tribute to Carolee Schneemann, who had been scheduled to perform but passed away just a few weeks prior to the event. Following the stills below, can be found a video of the event.

Read the press release here.