September 7, 2006: Michael Castro and Eugene Redmond

 

Michael Castro and his friends started River Styx in the late sixties. He recently stepped down as the director of the River Styx at Duff's Reading Series, but continues on the board. His two newest books are Human Rites and Swimming in the Ground: Contemporary Hungarian Poetry (co-translated by Gabor G. Gyukics), both on Neshui Press.

 

"Eugene Redmond is a widely published poet, a major figure in the cultural blossoming of the 1960s. While many of his peers headed for the coasts and their more visible literary scenes, Redmond has opted to remain here, on his home turf, and his poems are deeply rooted in his environment. He writes of what he sees in the streets of East St. Louis, of local heroes and heroines, and of the history that has shaped the city's African-American community." —from the PBS documentary, The Mississippi: River of Song

 

 

October 5, 2006: Ray Hsu and François Luong

 

Ray Hsu is the author of Anthropy (Nightwood Editions, 2005), which won the Gerald Lampert Award. His poems have appeared in Fence, New American Writing, and The Walrus. He is a Ph.D. candidate in literary studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and may be teaching in prison this fall.

 

François Luong is a member of the KaBLOW! collective. Previous work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pebble Lake Review, Syntax: A Denver Review and the untitled Outside Voices anthology of younger poets. He also serves as book reviewer for miPOesias. He lives in Houston, Texas.

 

 

October 21-22, 2006: Tower Grove Farmer's Market Small Press Fair

 

Location: Tower Grove Farmer's Market (http://www.tgmarket.org).  Information forthcoming.

 

 

November 2, 2006: Day of the Dead Beats

 

Day of the Dead Beats is an annual St. Louis reading of dead Beat poets by local writers, actors, musicians and personalities. The event, started by Paul Thiel and others following the 1997 death of Allen Ginsberg, has continued every year since.  Its title is, of course, a play on words incorporating the Mexican holiday, Day of the Dead or Dia de Los Muertos and is a sort of remembrance of those who are gone but not forgotten.

 

Brett Underwood has taken over coordination of the event since 2004 and is thrilled that the event is part of Observable Readings. Join the Dead Beats at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dayofthedeadbeats/

 

 

December 5, 2006: Gabe Gudding and Piotr Gwiazda

 

Gabriel Gudding is the author of two books, A Defense of Poetry (Pitt Poetry Series, 2002) and Rhode Island Notebook (Dalkey Archive Press, 2008). His work appears in such anthologies as Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present (Scribner, 2003). He teaches literature and creative writing at Illinois State University.

 

Piotr Gwiazda is the author of Gagarin Street (WWPH, 2005). His poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Columbia, Drunken Boat, Hotel Amerika, Rattle, The Southern Review, Swink, Washington Square, and elsewhere. He teaches modern and contemporary poetry at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

 

 

January 4, 2007: Rockin' Robins - Schiff, Schaer, and Behn

 

Robyn Schiff's first collection of poems, Worth, was published in 2002 and appeared on Fence magazine's list of Most Notable Books for that year. Originally from New Jersey, Schiff now lives in Chicago, where she is a visiting professor in the English department at Northwestern University.

 

Robin Beth Schaer works at the Academy of American Poets and has taught writing at Columbia University and Cooper Union. Her poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and have appeared in Rattapallax, Small Spiral Notebook, Denver Quarterly, and are forthcoming in Spinning Jenny.

 

Robin Behn's Horizon Note won the Brittingham Prize from the University of Wisconsin Press in 2001. She has authored two other books of poetry: Paper Bird (Texas Tech, 1988) and The Red Hour (HarperCollins, 1993). She directs the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama.

 

 

February 1, 2007: Ten Jens - Hofer, Bervin, Chapis, Robinson, MacKenzie, Coleman, Woods, Scappettone, Gaby, Lyons, and Mueller  [PRINTABLE HANDBILL FOR THIS EVENT]

 

Jen Hofer's recent publications include Sin puertas visibles: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Mexican Women (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003) and slide rule (subpress, 2002). Her work can be found in recent issues of 1913, Bomb, Bombay Gin and Primary Writing.

 

Jen Bervin is the author of A Non-Breaking Space (uglyducklingpresse.org), Nets (Ugly Duckling Presse 2004) and Under What Is Not Under (Potes & Poets 2001),. Bervin is an editor of the literary journal, jubilat, and teaches at Pratt Institute and New York University.

 

Jen Chapis is author of the chapbook The Beekeeper's Departure (Backwards City 2007). Recipient of the Florida Review Editor's Prize and GSU Review Poetry Prize, she has published poems in The Iowa Review, McSweeney's, Quarterly West, Best New Poets, etc. Jen is an Editor with Nightboat Books (nightboat.org).

 

Jen Coleman is a poet in Brooklyn, NY and co-editor of PomPom magazine (pompompress.com). She's also co-author of the chapbook Communal Bebop Canto with CE Putnam and Allison Cobb.

 

Jen MacKenzie teaches literature and writing at UM St. Louis. Her work has appeared in a number of publications, among them The Literary Review, Feminist Studies, The Christian Science Monitor, Unitarian-Universalist Poets, and, locally, River Styx, Delmar, and Sou'wester.

 

Jen Robinson is the author of For Conifer Fanatics (Soft Skull, 1996) and the chapbooks What Solitary Ocean and Late Night Clanging (with artist Elizabeth Zechel). She serves as puzzle editor for Lungfull! magazine and makes her home in Queens, New York.

 

Jen Woods is a poet and short fiction writer from Louisville, Kentucky. She serves as an editorial and marketing assistant for Sarabande Books, an independent literary press (sarabandebooks.org).

 

Jen Gaby studied Creative Writing at University of Indiana and is a fierce advocate for the literary arts in St. Louis. During daylight hours, she serves as the public relations manager for the Contemporary Art Museum.

 

Jen Scappettone's Abluvion Almanac will be out imminently from Outside Voices. Poems, translations from Italian, and prose have appeared lately in Bay Poetics, P-Queue, The Canary, The Brooklyn Rail, Chicago Review, and other places. She lives in Chicago.

 

Jen Lyons is from Kansas City and is currently attending the Washington University MFA program; she has had a poem published in Cimarron Review.

 

Jen Mueller's new collection, Bonneville, comes out this spring from Elixir Books. She teaches poetry and fiction writing at McKendree College.

 

 

February 14, 2007: Valentine's Day Reading @ The Royale

 

I've been through diamonds, I've been through minks, I've been through it all: love stinks. Are you single? Cynical? Both? Come congregate with your kind at The Royale on the night of Valentine's Day, with your Delilah-style hostess, Julie Dill. Sign up to vent your spleen on stage, or just watch as the loved and the lost render their favorite love songs, torch tunes, and kiss offs into performance poetry. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll drink beer and cocktails. And you'll forget all about what's-his-name. Come because you're angry, come because you're bored, but most of all, because love is like a cloud, it holds a lot of rain, oooh, love hurts.

 

 

March 8, 2007: Jon Woodward, John Gallaher, Wayne Miller

 

Jon Woodward was born in Wichita, Kansas. He currently lives in the Boston area and works at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. His first book, Mister Goodbye Easter Island, was published by Alice James Books in 2003. His second book, Rain, was published by Wave Books in 2006.

 

John Gallaher is the author of Gentlemen in Turbans, Ladies in Cauls (Spuyten Duyvil, 2001) and the forthcoming Little Book of Guesses (Four Way Books, 2007) winner of the Levis Poetry Prize. He is an editor of The Laurel Review.

 

Wayne Miller is the author of Only the Senses Sleep (New Issues, 2006) and What Night Says to the Empty Boat (GreenTower, 2005), translator of I Don't Believe in Ghosts (BOA), by Albanian poet Moikom Zeqo, and co-editor of the forthcoming anthology New European Poetry (Graywolf).  Miller teaches at Central Missouri State University, where he co-edits Pleiades.

 

 

March 17, 2007: St. Pat's Day Reading @ The Royale

 

1-2 P.M.
Reading - K. Curtis Lyle Presents WB Yeats
Music - Dave Landreth & His Amazing Banjo
Reading - Don Erickson Reads Irish Poetry
Music - Dave Landreth Frails Some More

4-5 P.M.
Reading - Mike & Mandy McBride Perform Selections from Wilde
Music - Ceol (four-piece band) Plays Irish Songs
Reading - Larry Goodman Gives Us James Joyce
Music - Ceol Plays More Irish Songs
Music - Darwin White Sings "Danny Boy"

6-7 P.M.
Reading - Paul Acker Regales Us with Old Irish Tales and Poems
Music - Ken Wolfe Sings Songs o' Love, Pain, Sex, & Drinking
Reading - Ashby Tyler Reads from U2 and The Cranberries
Music - Ken Wolfe Sings More Such Songs
Music - Aaron Belz Sings "Danny Boy"

Location: The Royale, 3132 S. Kingshighway. http://www.theroyale.com 

 

 

April 5, 2007: David Clewell and Joy Katz

 

David Clewell is the author of six poetry collections, including Blessings in Disguise (Penguin, 1991), a winner in the National Poetry Series, and Now We're Getting Somewhere (University of Wisconsin, 1994) winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. Clewell teaches at Webster University in St. Louis.

 

Joy Katz's most recent book is The Garden Room (Tupelo Press, 2006), and her other book is Fabulae (Southern Illinois University Press, 2002). She is co-editor of the soon-to-be-published anthology Dark Horses: Poets on Overlooked Poems and a senior editor at Pleiades. When she is not visiting St. Louis, she teaches writing workshops at The New School.

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