Ara Shirinyan Reads Amy Gerstler, 9/28/13 @ PRB

From "The True Bride".  "Burnt Norton" group reading, 9/28/13 @ 951 CKR. 

Kirsty Singer Reads Joseph Ceravolo, 9/28/13 @ PRB

From Spring in this World of Poor Mutts. "Burnt Norton" group reading, 9/28/13 @ 951 CKR.

Andrew Choate Reads Harry Mathews, 9/28/13 @ PRB

From Tlooth. "Burnt Norton" group reading, 9/28/13 @ 951 CKR.

Rita Gonzalez Reads Hannah Weiner, 9/28/13 @ PRB

From "Written In/The Zero One". Burnt Norton group reading, at 951 CKR.

Anthony McCann Reads John Giorno, 9/28/13 @ PRB

From "Vajra Kisses". Burnt Norton group reading, at 951 CKR.

Burnt Norton: Videos and Performances

We had a full house last night at 951 Chung King Road to listen to 20-some readers interpret the work of the 47 poets that failed to survive Norton versioning between editions of the PAP anthology. Some really terrific readings, and we'll be posting videos throughout the week that we captured at home and from afar (you're welcome to send us your own).

Here's one from Dodie Bellamy taking on John Wieners' "A Poem for Record Players" from a hotel room in Colorado. And a half-lit hotel is a particularly fitting mise-en-scène for restless poetries, no?

"Burnt Norton" Group Reading: Invitation to Participate

Burnt Norton, Group Reading: Invitation to Participate

In this season of Norton remixing (see Dodie Bellamy’s awesome and just-published  “cunt-up” of the 1975 Norton Anthology of Poetry, Cunt Norton), the Poetic Research Bureau joins in the scrum with a community celebration of the decanonized, the deauthorized and the deprecated.

One week from tonight, Saturday, September 28th, from 8pm to 10pm, the PRB invites you to come by and read a couple poems from one of the 47 poets deleted from the Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry.

Between its first edition published in 1994, and its second edition published in spring of this year, 59 new “postmodern” “American” “poets” were added to the Norton Postmodern, while 47 were removed. Blame the atavistic medium of the print anthology, with its peculiar physical constraints, or blame editorial whimsy and the mercurial projects of “movement poetries”, but 47 poets once thought burning bright and of the moment had their wicks snuffed and got shot out of the canon, as it were.

So let’s light ‘em up. There’s nothing duller than canon politics or carping about anthologies, but reading good poets aloud is pretty terrific, and this sounds like as good a reason as any. Come out and read from the work of one of the following poets for five minutes next Saturday night. If you aren’t in the Los Angeles area, take some video of yourself reading and upload it to Youtube, and share the link with us at directors@poeticresearch.com . We’ll post it to our blog and FB page, and will project it on the PRB wall next Saturday.

The 47 poets decanonized between the first and second editions of the Norton PAP are:

James Laughlin, Hilda Morley, Charles Bukowski, Hannah Weiner, Harry Mathews, Jerome Rothenberg, David Antin, Anselm Hollo, Joseph Ceravolo, John Wieners, Robert Kelly, Russell Edson, John Giorno, Jayne Cortez, Clarence Major, Diane Wakoski, Tony Towle, Ed Sanders, Stephen Rodefer, Robert Grenier, Miguel Algarin, Tom Clark, Charles North, William Corbett, Tom Mandel, Ray DiPalma, Maureen Owen, Paul Violi, Michael Davidson, Lorenzo Thomas, John Godfrey, Andrei Codrescu, Paul Hoover, David Shapiro, Barrett Watten, David Lehman, George Evans, August Kleinzahler, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Jessica Hagedorn, Jim Carroll, Art Lange, Jimmy Santiago Baca, David Trinidad, Dennis Cooper, Amy Gerstler, Diane Ward

***

“Burnt Norton” Group Reading

Saturday, Sept 28, 8pm-10pm

Poetic Research Bureau

@ 951 Chung King Rd

Chinatown, Los Angeles