Charles Alexander at lunch on Tuesday Feb 1

Charles Alexander will be with us this Tuesday (Feb 1) at noon for a lunchtime program featuring this wonderful and important poet. Charles Alexander is the founder and director of Chax Press, in Tucson, where he has lived all but three of the past 27 years. His books include Hopeful Buildings (Chax 1990), Arc of Light / Dark Matter (Segue 1992), Near or Random Acts (Singing Horse 2004), and Certain Slants (Junction 2007), which includes 30 sections of the ongoing work Pushing Water, which is expected to be published in its entirety in 2011. He is currently at work on a book about the pleasures of poetry. Rsvp: email wh@writing.upenn.edu or call 215-746-POEM.

introduction to RealArts

Not too long ago Anthony DeCurtis hosted a session at the Writers House that served as an introduction to the RealArts summer internship program. The video here gives you the first few minutes of that session.

visiting Chinese poet Yanrong reads a poem

The Chinese poet Yanrong performs his poem, "Prophecy and Carnival," in Chinese, while Charles Bernstein reads an English translation. On December 9, 2010, a group of poets from Wuhan, China, visited the Writers House: Liang Biwen, Liu Yishan, Chen Ying-Song, Tian He, Wang Xinmin, Ke Yumin, Li Ming, Hu Xiang, Liu An. Several American poets read their work in English and listened while the visiting poets read their poems in Chinese.

north of invention

At the end of his reading tonight at the Kelly Writers House, Fred Wah was joined by Nicole Broussard. They read a poem of hers, together, she reading, of course, the original French, while he read an English translation. A wonderful way to end a long and continuously interesting day of talks and readings, day one of the "North of Invention" program. Be sure tomorrow--Friday, January 21--to watch the live video stream, starting at 10:30 AM eastern time.

scaremongering in the media

Dick Polman discusses scaremongering in the media. Visit our YouTube channel for more video excerpts.

ah, the singularity of the Writers House scene

When Susan Howe visited us last spring, we were ready. So ready! Such a classic Writers House scene: the edgy and famously "difficult" poet (=supposedly difficult to read) is coming to spend time with us and we not only read the poetry, and talk it through until we get it; but, more, we make T-shirts and feel, well, the sheer singularity of the context. Writers House Fellows, every spring, every single spring since 1999: we are starting up again and this spring we'll be spending time with Susan Cheever in February, Edward Albee in March, and Marjorie Perloff in April.

snow again

Our Class of 1942 Garden as it looked yesterday morning after Philly got 6-8 inches of new snow. We love our garden, and here is more about it - and here a glimpse during renovation.

KWH on YouTube

At right you see a videocap of Kaegan Sparks delivering her valedictory speech at last May's "Senior Capstone" program--our way of enabling departing members of the Writers House community to say a goodbye that's truly ALT-graduation. An excerpt of Kaegan's speech is available here on YouTube. Now, if you haven't spent any time watching our collection of video excerpts on YouTube, please go here and have a look. Thanks to Amaris, KWH"s YouTube maven, this collection is growing every week.

the writers' block at 38th

Since 2003 the Kelly Writers House has been affiliated with all of Penn's other writing programs through the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing (CPCW). CPCW is the home of the Critical Writing Program, which hosts the Marks Writing Center and through which all undergrads fulfill their writing requirement; the Creative Writing Program; PennSound; RealArts@PENN summer internships; the Bassini Writing Apprenticeships program; and the Chinese/American Association for Poetry and Poetics (CAAP). Go here and explore all of it. KWH is of course at 3805 Locust Walk and the rest of CPCW has its home at 3808 Walnut. These two buildings, though on different blocks along 38th Street, are back to back. We call it The Writers' Block.