CLEVELAND - Thursday, October 18th, 6pm – Hands On/Hands Off - A Talk & Poetry Reading with Bill Berkson - Clark Hall 309, Case Western Reserve University (11130 Bellflower Rd., Cleveland Hts)

Departing from the elegance of what the painter Larry Rivers called the “lollipop” of modern livres d’artiste as made by the likes of Mallarmé, Manet, Picasso, Apollinaire, Matisse, Bonnard, and the Surrealists, New York artists and poets from the 1950s onward have developed a new type of synergy — spontaneous, often more casual, and involving popular forms such as comics and advertising layouts. This talk will include a capsule history of the various modes and players — beginning with the just-reprinted O’Hara/Rivers portfolio Stones — as well as accounts of Berkson’s collaborations with Philip Guston, Joe Brainard, George Schneeman, Léonie Guyer, John Zurier, and others.

MIAMI – Thursday, October 18th, 4:30pm – Reading Poetry Backwards – A Talk with Chris Nealon - Art Building Room 100 (1601 University Boulevard, Hamilton) – Poetry Reading – 6:30pm  - Bachelor Room 337 (1601 University Boulevard, Hamilton)

Chris Nealon is the author of Foundlings: Lesbian and Gay Historical Emotion before Stonewall (Duke, 2001), and The Matter of Capital: Poetry and Crisis in The American Century (Harvard, 2011), as well as two books of poems, The Joyous Age (Black Square Editions, 2004) and Plummet (Edge Books, 2009).

COLUMBUS – Saturday, October 20th, 9pm – Black Lawrence Press Reading, featuring Mary Biddinger, Sandra Kolankiewicz, Nick McRae and Brad Ricca - Kafe Kerouac (2250 N. High St)

Mary Biddinger is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently the chapbook Saint Monica (Black Lawrence Press, 2011) She edits the Akron Series in Poetry and the Akron Series in Contemporary Poetics. She also serves as an open book competition juror for the Cleveland State University Poetry Center. A collection, O Holy Insurgency is forthcoming this month from Black Lawrence.

Sandra Kolankiewicz has a B.A. and Ph.D. from Ohio University and attended the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins.  Her collection of stories titled Isla was a finalist for the Hudson Prize at Black Lawrence Press; her collection of stories Consequential Monologues was a finalist for the Spokane Prize; and her novel Blue Eyes Don’t Cry won the Hackney Award.  Her poetry collection Turning Inside Out was a Black River Chapbook Competition winner and was published by Black Lawrence.

Nick McRae is the author of The Name Museum (C&R Press, forthcoming 2013)—winner of the De Novo Poetry Prize—as well as two forthcoming chapbooks: Mountain Redemption (Black Lawrence Press, 2013), winner of the Black River chapbook competition; and Moravia (Folded Word Press, 2013). He is the editor of the forthcoming anthology Gathered: Contemporary Quaker Poets (Sundress Publications, 2013).

Brad Ricca was born in Cleveland, OH and has had poems published in The Kerf, The Coe Review, 6ix, The White Pelican Review, Luna Negra, Caesura, Monkeyspank, Black Dirt, and Albatross, among others. He teaches at Case Western Reserve University, where he got his Ph.D. in literature and was Managing Editor of The Emily Dickinson Journal. He produced a documentary film called Last Son (2009) and has a book about Superman forthcoming from St. Martin’s Press. His first book of poems, American Mastodon, won the 2009 St. Lawrence Book Award and will be published in 2011.

PUBLICATIONS – The Autumn 2012 issue of The Journal, Ohio State’s literary magazine is now live with work from Keetje Kuipers, Amy Bernhard and a featured interview with artist Jon Stommel. Hop to.

–joshua kleinberg