KGB Monday Night Poetry Reading Series
Hosted by Laura Cronk and Michael Quattrone
Monday, May 12, 2008
7:30 pm
FREE
For the season finale of our first year hosting the KGB poetry series, Laura and I wanted to celebrate and give thanks to the series' previous curators (and founders): Star Black, Deborah Landau, David Lehman and Matthew Zapruder. Over that last twelve years, these four poets have made the KGB Poetry series what it is--one of New York City's hottest literary events. This Monday will be no exception. Please join us for a very special night.
Star Black, who founded the KBG Poetry Reading Series with David Lehman in 1997, is the author of five books of poems, mostly recently Ghostwood, published by Melville House. Her collages appear in Sitgmata Erataca Et Cetera with poems by Bill Knott and an introduction by Mark Doty, published by Saturnalia Books in 2007, and her sonnets are anthologized in The Penguin Book of the Sonnet and Best American Erotic Poems. For the past two years, she has been a visiting lecturer at the Bennington Writers Seminars.
Deborah Landau's book, Orchidelerium, won the 2003 Anhinga Prize for Poetry. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Grand Street, Crab Orchard Review, Barrow Street, The Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, Painted Bride Quarterly, and Gulf Coast, and she has published critical articles on contemporary American poetry. Landau has taught at Brown, Antioch, and The New School and is currently Director of NYU's Creative Writing Program. She curated the KGB Monday Night Poetry Series from 2004-2007.
David Lehman is the author of seven books of poems, most recently When a Woman Loves a Man (Scribner, 2005). He initiated and remains series editor of The Best American Poetry series, most recently editing The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present. With Star Black, he founded the Monday Night Poetry Reading Series at the KGB Bar. He teaches in the Graduate Writing Program at The New School and lives in New York City.
Matthew Zapruder is a poet and translator, as well as the founder and Editor in Chief of Wave Books. His first book of poetry, American Linden, was the winner of the Tupelo Press Editors' Prize, and came out in 2002. His second collection, The Pajamaist, was released by Copper Canyon in 2006. His book of translations from the Romanian, Secret Weapon: The Late Poems of Eugen Jebeleanu, was published by Coffee House in 2007. Zapruder teaches creative writing in the MFA Writing Program at the New School in New York City. He curated the KGB Monday Night Poetry Series from 2004-2007
KGB Bar ● 85 East 4th Street ● New York, NY 10003 ● Phone: 212-505-3360
--MQ
Last night's season finale reading at KGB was a reminder of why this series continues to thrive: a packed house of "fit" listeners (including many poets: I spotted Lawrence Joseph, Karen Volkman, George Green, Leonard Schwartz, Mary Donnelly, David Sewell, Amy Lawless, Gabriella Torres), two gracious hosts (Laura Cronk and Michael Quattrone), and four strong poets at the top of their game. Each poet read for twelve to fifteeen minutes. 