Synopses & Reviews
Literary Nonfiction. Poetry History and Criticism. Poetics. LOST and FOUND features extra-poetic work—correspondence, journals, critical prose, and lecture transcripts—by New American Poets, with their precursors and followers. SERIES 3 includes Langston Hughes, Nancy Cunard, Louise Thompson, Lorine Niedecker, John Wieners, Charles Olson, Diane di Prima, Edward Dorn, Michael Rumaker, and Joanne Kyger. Edited, annotated, and with accompanying essays, Bob Holman has said, "These books are gems. The idea is genius." Diane di Prima has called the series "a gold mine" and Joanne Kyger writes: "What a brilliant cast of characters. Just exactly what one (myself) would like to read." Presented as an integrated set of chapbooks, LOST and FOUND is essential reading that proposes new and alternative versions of literary and cultural history.
Synopsis
Literary Nonfiction. Poetry History & Criticism. Poetics. African American Studies. LGBT Studies. Featuring Langston Hughes, Nancy Cunard, Louise Thompson, Lorine Niedecker, John Wieners, Charles Olson, Diane di Prima, Edward Dorn, Michael Rumaker, and Joanne Kyger. Edited by John Harkey, Michael Seth Stewart, Ana Bozičevic, Lindsey Freer, Megan Paslawski, Joanne Kyger, and Anne Donlon, with General Editor Ammiel Alcalay.
LOST & FOUND: THE CUNY POETICS DOCUMENT INITIATIVE publishes unexpected, genre-bending works by important 20th century writers. Unearthed from personal and institutional archives in the United States and abroad, these materials are edited by doctoral students at the Graduate Center, CUNY. SERIES III is a collection of 8 chapbooks that authenticate Edward Dahlberg's claim that There is more political energy in friendship than in ideology. Langston Hughes & Nancy Cunard cement their personal relationship by penning notes across the ocean throughout the Spanish Civil War. After meeting at Black Mountain, John Wieners & Charles Olson remain in close correspondence until months before Olson's death. In Old Father, Old Artificer, part lecture and part evocation of Charles Olson, Diane di Prima helps to establish how key figures in New American Poetry were processing their own past, while the breathless Olson lecture by Ed Dorn erodes the fictive dualism that pits poetic theory against practical action. In his letters, Michael Rumaker invites you to share his life, its radiant pursuit of love, dirty realism, literature, and lasting community, and Joanne Kyger booms communication is essential in her Letters to & from. In Homemade Poems, a gift- book mailed to a friend in 1964, Lorine Niedecker insists that the handmade chapbook is the material continuation of the poems so carefully nestled in its pages. Breaking up the monolith of the historical lens, Series III continues to track individuals as they tell their stories, cast their lifelines, and position themselves in relation to the times they lived in--and the times we live in--through intimate journals, letters, lectures, and friendships. Edited, annotated, and with accompanying essays, The London Review of Books calls this a serious and worthy enterprise. Diane di Prima calls the series a gold mine and Joanne Kyger writes: What a brilliant cast of characters. Just exactly what one (myself) would like to read.
SERIES III includes:
Lorine Niedecker: Homemade Poems (John Harkey, editor)
John Wieners & Charles Olson: Selected Correspondence (Parts I & II) (Michael Seth Stewart, editor)
Diane di Prima: Charles Olson Memorial Lecture (Ammiel Alcalay and Ana Bozičevic, editors)
Edward Dorn: The Olson Memorial Lectures (Lindsey Freer, editor)
Michael Rumaker: Selected Letters (Megan Paslawski, editor)
Letters to & from Joanne Kyger (Ammiel Alcalay and Joanne Kyger, editors)
Langston Hughes, Nancy Cunard & Louise Thompson: Poetry, Politics & Friendship in the Spanish Civil War (Anne Donlon, editor)
Synopsis
Featuring Langston Hughes, Nancy Cunard, Louise Thompson, Lorine Niedecker, John Wieners, Charles Olson, Diane di Prima, Edward Dorn, Michael Rumaker, and Joanne Kyger. Edited by John Harkey, Michael Seth Stewart, Ana Bozičevic, Lindsey Freer, Megan Paslawski, Joanne Kyger, and Anne Donlon, with General Editor Ammiel Alcalay.
LOST & FOUND: THE CUNY POETICS DOCUMENT INITIATIVE publishes unexpected, genre-bending works by important 20th century writers. Unearthed from personal and institutional archives in the United States and abroad, these materials are edited by doctoral students at the Graduate Center, CUNY. SERIES III is a collection of 8 chapbooks that authenticate Edward Dahlberg's claim that "There is more political energy in friendship than in ideology." Langston Hughes & Nancy Cunard cement their personal relationship by penning notes across the ocean throughout the Spanish Civil War. After meeting at Black Mountain, John Wieners & Charles Olson remain in close correspondence until months before Olson's death. In "Old Father, Old Artificer," part lecture and part evocation of Charles Olson, Diane di Prima helps to establish how key figures in "New American Poetry" were processing their own past, while the breathless Olson lecture by Ed Dorn erodes the fictive dualism that pits poetic theory against practical action. In his letters, Michael Rumaker invites you to share his life, its radiant pursuit of love, "dirty realism," literature, and lasting community, and Joanne Kyger booms "communication is essential" in her Letters to & from. In Homemade Poems, a gift-book mailed to a friend in 1964, Lorine Niedecker insists that the handmade chapbook is the material continuation of the poems so carefully nestled in its pages. Breaking up the monolith of the historical lens, Series III continues to track individuals as they tell their stories, cast their lifelines, and position themselves in relation to the times they lived in--and the times we live in--through intimate journals, letters, lectures, and friendships. Edited, annotated, and with accompanying essays, The London Review of Books calls this "a serious and worthy enterprise." Diane di Prima calls the series "a gold mine" and Joanne Kyger writes: "What a brilliant cast of characters. Just exactly what one (myself) would like to read."
SERIES III includes:
Lorine Niedecker: Homemade Poems (John Harkey, editor)
John Wieners & Charles Olson: Selected Correspondence (Parts I & II) (Michael Seth Stewart, editor)
Diane di Prima: Charles Olson Memorial Lecture (Ammiel Alcalay and Ana Bozičevic, editors)
Edward Dorn: The Olson Memorial Lectures (Lindsey Freer, editor)
Michael Rumaker: Selected Letters (Megan Paslawski, editor)
Letters to & from Joanne Kyger (Ammiel Alcalay and Joanne Kyger, editors)
Langston Hughes, Nancy Cunard & Louise Thompson: Poetry, Politics & Friendship in the Spanish Civil War (Anne Donlon, editor)
About the Author
Ammiel Alcalay grew up in Boston and, as a child, spent time in Gloucester where family friends included Charles Olson and Vincent Ferrini. As a teenager, through the Grolier and Temple Bar Bookshops in Cambridge, he befriended many poets, including John Wieners. Poet, translator, critic, scholar and activist, he teaches at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center. His books include SCRAPMETAL (Factory School, 2007); FROM THE WARRING FACTIONS (Beyond Baroque Press, 2002), a book-length poem dedicated to the Bosnian town of Srebrenica; MEMORIES OF OUR FUTURE: SELECTED ESSAYS (City Lights Publishers, 1999); After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 1993); and THE CAIRO NOTEBOOKS (Singing Horse Press, 1993). His translations include SARAJEVO BLUES (City Lights Publishers, 1998) and NINE ALEXANDRIAS (City Lights Publishers, 2003) by the Bosnian poet Semezdin Mehmedinovic, KEYS TO THE GARDEN: NEW ISRAELI WRITING (City Lights Publishers, 11996), and a co-translation (with Oz Shelach), of OUTCAST by Shimon Ballas (City Lights Publishers, 2007). A new book of essays, A Little History, and a collective translation of the Syrian poet Faraj Bayraqdar are forthcoming with Fred Dewey as editor. ISLANDERS, a novel, came out in 2010 (City Lights Publishers). His new selection of poetry, NEITHER WIT NOR GOLD, was published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2011. Along with Anne Waldman and others, he was one of the initiators of the Poetry Is News Coalition, and organized, with Mike Kelleher and Fred Dewey, the OlsonNow project. Most recently, through the PhD Program in English and the Center for the Humanities at the CUNY Graduate Center, he initiated LOST and FOUND: THE CUNY POETICS DOCUMENT INITIATIVE, a series of student and guest edited archival texts emerging from the New American Poetry.