Saturday, February 25: Ted Dodson & Mathew Timmons

The Poetic Research Bureau presents...

TED DODSON
& MATHEW TIMMONS

Saturday, February 25 2017

Doors 7:30pm
Reading 8pm

Ted Dodson is the author of “At the National Monument / Always Today” (Pioneer Works, 2016). He works for BOMB, is the books editor for Futurepoem, and is a former editor of The Poetry Project Newsletter.

Mathew Timmons is the author of Terrifying Photo (Wonder 2015), Joyful Noise for three or more voices (Jaded Ibis, 2012), and The New Poetics (Les Figues, 2010). He is also the editor & publisher of Insert Blanc Press in Los Angeles, CA.

His current project, Encouraging Words, looks for spirited language in places near and far, obvious and obscure, and reframes that language to bring it into a performance and poetic context and reveal how even our most saccharine words can be both scary and energizing, or even encouraging.

Two works will be presented this evening: an Untitled Dialogue with Jay Erker and Ben White, and an Untitled Monologue.

Friday, February 24: Nicholas Muellner

Nicholas Muellner will present a scripted slide-lecture in conjunction with the release of his new book from SPBH Editions, In Most Tides an Island.

Seductive, disorienting, informative and allegorical, this work is at once a glimpse of contemporary post-Soviet queer life, a meditation on solitude and desire in the digital age, and an inquiry into the nature of photography and poetry in a world characterized by cruelty, longing, resignation and hope.

As with all of Muellner’s image-text projects, this work initially evolved as a visually choreographed slide lecture, from which the related but distinct book emerged. At the Poetic Research Bureau, he will present the original lecture, integrating over 130 images, many not included in the published book.

In Most Tides an Island grew from two very different impulses: to witness the lives of closeted gay men in provincial Russia, and to compose the gothic tale of a solitary woman on a remote tropical island. Along the way, these disparate pursuits – one predicated on documentation, the other on invention - unexpectedly converged. Shot along Baltic, Caribbean and Black Sea coastlines, distant landscapes met at the rocky point of Alone. From that vista, they ask: what do intimacy and solitude mean in a radically alienated but hyper-connected world?

Nicholas Muellner is a photographer and writer based in West Danby, NY and Los Angeles. His image-text books include The Amnesia Pavilions (2011) and The Photograph Commands Indifference (2009). He is Co-Founder of ITI Press and the Image Text MFA at Ithaca College.

Doors 7:30pm
Lecture 8pm

Poetic Research Bureau
951 Chung King Rd.
Los Angeles, CA
90012

Sunday 2pm: Book Launch w/ SE Barnet & David Buuck

LA Launch of
Drawing and Other Writing
by SE Barnet and Sally Morfill

including a performance from SE Barnet and David Buuck
and a film by Sally Morfill and Ana Čavić

Through the work of SE Barnet and Sally Morfill, the Everyday Press publication Drawing and Other Writing offers a look at how meaning is formed and interpreted when we make a mark. The practices of these two artists include a range of influences and source material; from the Mass Observation archive to Henri Michaux's alphabet of lines. Additionally, artists Ana Čavić and Louisa Minkin have contributed work to the book.

***

Sunday, February 19 2017
Doors 2pm
Event 2:30pm

Poetic Research Bureau
951 Chung King Rd.
Los Angeles, CA
90012

AS I STAND LIVING BOOK RELEASE: ZOË RUIZ / BRIAN EVENSON / CHRISTOPHER HIGGS

In his radical memoir, As I Stand Living, Christopher Higgs uses the constraint-based techniques William Faulkner employed for the construction of As I Lay Dying to create a deeply personal and philosophical portrait of the year he became a father. Blending elements of fantasy and confession, Higgs confronts parenthood by divulging his most intimate fears, secrets, sorrows, and hopes as a writer, husband, and teacher. A methodically composed and paradoxical blend of inextricably vulnerable emotion and objective fascination, As I Stand Living renders visible the tension between mediation and transparency when attempting to represent, capture, and convey a lived experience on the cusp of its future. (#RECURRENT, Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2017)

http://copingmechanisms.net/portfolio/as-i-stand-living-by-christopher-higgs/


ZOË RUIZ lives and writes in Los Angeles. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Believer, The Millions, Marketplace, The Rumpus, Salon, Two Serious Ladies, and the anthologies California Prose Directory (2014), Rooted, and Golden State. She is also the Events Director at The Last Bookstore as well as a freelance book editor and book publicist.

BRIAN EVENSON is the author of a dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection A Collapse of Horses (Coffee House Press 2016) and the novella The Warren (Tor.com 2016). He has also recently published Windeye (Coffee House Press 2012) and Immobility (Tor 2012), both of which were finalists for a Shirley Jackson Award. His novel Last Days won the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel of 2009. His novel The Open Curtain (Coffee House Press) was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an International Horror Guild Award. Other books include The Wavering Knife (which won the IHG Award for best story collection), Dark Property, and Altmann's Tongue. He has translated work by Christian Gailly, Jean Frémon, Claro, Jacques Jouet, Eric Chevillard, Antoine Volodine, Manuela Draeger, and David B. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes as well as an NEA fellowship. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Greek Spanish, Japanese, Persian, and Slovenian. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches in the Critical Studies Program at CalArts.

CHRISTOPHER HIGGS lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son, where he teaches narrative theory and technique at Cal State Northridge. He wrote The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney: a novel, released by Sator Press, and he assembled the SPD #1 Bestselling novel ONE, in collaboration with Blake Butler and Vanessa Place, released by Roof Books. In addition to publishing two chapbooks, Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously (Publishing Genius) and Becoming Monster (The Cupboard), he’s written for numerous print and online venues, including: Pleiades, New Theory, Diagram, AGNI, Denver Quarterly, Global Queer Cinema, and The Paris Review Daily.

***

 

Doors open 7:30pm

Reading at 8pm 

***

Poetic Research Bureau

951 Chung King Road

Chinatown, Los Angeles

Tuesday, January 31: Mohsen Emadi

No Ban:
An Evening of Poetry and Protest
with
Mohsen Emadi

Following President Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations, Phoneme Media is proud to announce an event featuring exiled Iranian poet Mohsen Emadi, who will not be permitted to return to the United States following his departure on Friday, February 3rd, 2017.

No Ban: An Evening of Poetry and Protest, will take place at 7.30 PM on January 31, 2017, at the Poetic Research Bureau in Chinatown (951 Chung King Road, Los Angeles, CA 90012).

Mohsen Emadi, who has been in exile from Iran for eight years and now resides permanently in Mexico, will be introduced by Phoneme’s founding editor David Shook before reading from his English-language debut Standing on Earth, translated from the Persian by American poet Lyn Coffin. Books will be available for purchase.

Called “one of the brightest stars of twenty-first century Persian poetry” by Sholeh Wolpé, Emadi is renowned for his inspired performance of his own work. His poems have been praised by Jerome Rothenberg, Sam Hamill, and Nathalie Handal, who writes, “The poems in his unforgettable collection ground us, and give us flight.”

Review copies of Standing on Earth are available, and Mohsen Emadi is available for interview. Contact David Shook at david@phonememedia.org.

***

Doors open 7:30pm

Reading at 8pm 

***

Poetic Research Bureau

951 Chung King Road

Chinatown, Los Angeles

Magra Books Launch: Sunday, January 29 at 4pm

 

 

Please join us Sunday, January 29, from 4 to 5pm, at the Poetic Research Bureau in celebrating the inaugural season of titles from the independent publisher, Magra Books.

Reading from their new books will be Martha Ronk, The Unfamiliar Familiar, and Dennis Phillips, Desert Sequence.

Part of the presentation will be a memorial tribute to Ray DiPalma (1943-2016), whose For a Curved Surface is also one of Magra’s initial offerings.

Based in Los Angeles and Tuscany, Magra Books is a series of chapbooks, printed in editions of 300 copies, featuring unique works by important writers. Each volume, typically 32 pages in length, presents writers who are up to the all-encompassing challenge of producing work that strives to make “news that stays news.” Writers who are passionate about language, language that knows no borders.

Hosting the event will be Paul Vangelisti and Sean Pessin, part of Magra Book’s editorial staff.

Saturday, Jan 21: Stacey Tran & James Gendron

The Poetic Research Bureau presents...

STACEY TRAN & JAMES GENDRON

Stacey Tran is a writer from Portland, OR. Her work can be found in The Fanzine, diaCRITICS, GRAMMA, and The Volta, among others. Wendy's Subway is releasing her first chapbook, FAKE HAIKU (February 2017). www.staceytran.com

James Gendron is the author of Weirde Sister and Sexual Boat (Sex Boats), both from Octopus Books. His poetry has appeared in Tin House, The PEN Poetry Series, Fence, Witch Craft Magazine, and The Fanzine. His aura is purple.

* * *

Saturday, January 21 2017
Doors 7:30pm
Reading 8pm

Poetic Research Bureau

951 Chung King Rd

Chinatown, Los Angeles