There are a couple of exciting events coming up featuring Bernadette Mayer, both in New York. First, this Friday, October 17, at the Poetry Project at St. Marks, there will be a 25th anniversary celebration of the terrific small press Tender Buttons, which was founded in 1989 by the poet Lee Ann Brown with the goal of publishing “the best in experimental women’s writing.”
The event marks the welcome return, in an expanded 25th anniversary edition, of Mayer’s wonderful book Sonnets (which has been out of print and hard to get a hold of in recent years). It will also pay tribute to the publication of a new book, Katy Bohinc’s Dear Alain.
There is quite a line-up of readers for this celebration — it will feature Bernadette Mayer herself, along with readings by Katy Bohinc, Anne Waldman, Dodie Bellamy, Laynie Browne, India Radfar, Jennifer Moxley, and video appearances / art by Harryette Mullen, Michelle Rollman, Julie Patton, Rosmarie Waldrop and Hannah Weiner. (There will be a reception at 7 and the reading is at 8).
Second, on Thursday, October 23, Mayer will be appearing at an event at the New York Public Library as part of its “Live from the NYPL” series.
LIVE brings together Bernadette Mayer, Matthea Harvey and Dorothea Lasky for an evening celebrating the experimental and adventurous in American poetry today. Together they represent the best of American lyricism, with voices as unique as they are elusive, uncensored and surprising. In a conversation moderated by Uzoamaka Maduka, these poets come together to rethink the question of what constitutes poetry.
You can find more information about this event here.
Oh yeah — there’s one more upcoming Mayer event, but this one might be a little harder to get to. If you happen to find yourself in the Czech Republic this upcoming week, I will be giving a talk entitled “Bernadette Mayer and the Poetics of the Maternal Everyday” on a panel on American poetry at the “Searching for Culture: International Cultural Studies Conference” at Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic. Hope to see you there!
Andrew Epstein
Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets 