LIVE! From City Lights

City Lights presents Eileen Myles, joined by Fanny Howe, Maggie Nelson, Camille Roy, Laurie Weeks, Simone White, Frank Wilderson, and Jillian Weise, celebrating the publication of "Pathetic Literature," edited by Eileen Myles and published by Grove Atlantic. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Pathetic Literature" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/pathetic-lit/ “Literature is pathetic.” So claims Eileen Myles in their bold and bracing introduction to "Pathetic Literature," an exuberant collection of pieces ranging from poetry to drama to prose to something in between, all of which explore those so-called “pathetic” or sensitive feelings around which lives are built and revolutions are incited. From confrontations with suffering, embarrassment, and disquiet, to the comforts and consolations of finding one’s familiar double in a poem, "Pathetic Literature" is a swarming taxonomy of ways to think differently and live pathetically on a polarized and fearful planet. To learn more about Eileen Myles and the other participants, visit: https://citylights.com/events/eileen-myles/ This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Sam Woolley in conversation with Jeff Horwitz. Sam Woolley celebrates the publication of his new book “Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity”, published by Yale University Press. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Manufacturing Consensus" directly from City Lights here: citylights.com/manufacturing-consensus-propaganda-in/ Samuel Woolley is assistant professor of journalism and media, program director of the Propaganda Research Lab, and Knight Faculty Fellow at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of “The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth”. Jeff Horwitz is an award-winning technology reporter for The Wall Street Journal based in San Francisco. His reporting has won repeated recognition, including a Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing award and a Gerald Loeb Awards finalist citation for articles he produced with two colleagues about Facebook’s struggle to police hate in India. Previously he was a financial and enterprise reporter for the Associated Press in Washington, D.C., where his work earned him the Christopher J. Welles Memorial Prize from the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Thomas Crow in conversation with Carrie Lambert-Beatty celebrating the launch of “The Artist in the Counterculture: Bruce Conner to Mike Kelley and Other Tales from the Edge” by Thomas Crow, published by Princeton University Press. This virtual event took place over Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "The Artist in the Counterculture: Bruce Conner to Mike Kelley and Other Tales from the Edge” directly from City Lights here: citylights.com/art-hardcover/artist-in-the-counterculture/ Thomas Crow is the Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. His many books include “The Long March of Pop: Art, Music, and Design, 1930–1995” and “The Hidden Mod in Modern Art: London, 1957–1969”. Carrie Lambert-Beatty is an art historian with a focus on contemporary art and interests in spectatorship, art and knowledge, and performance in an expanded sense. She teaches at Harvard University. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Curtis White in conversation with Cheston Knapp celebrating the launch of “Transcendent: Art and Dharma in a Time of Collapse” by Curtis White, published by Melville House. This virtual event took place over Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Transcendent: Art and Dharma in a Time of Collapse” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/general/trancendent/ Curtis White is a novelist and social critic whose works include “Memories of My Father Watching TV”, “The Middle Mind”, and, more recently, “The Science Delusion”, “We Robots”, and “Lacking Character”. His essays have appeared in Harpers and Tricycle. He taught English at Illinois State University. He is the founder (with Ronald Sukenick) of FC2, a publisher of innovative fiction run collectively by its authors. He lives in Port Townsend, WA. Cheston Knapp is a writer, editor, and photographer. He is the author of “Up Up, Down Down,” a collection of essays. He was the managing editor of Tin House magazine and the executive director of The Tin House Summer Workshop. Exhibits of his photography have appeared at Blue Moon Camera & Machine and Blue Sky Gallery in Portland OR. He makes his home with his wife and son in Portland, OR. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Aidan Levy in conversation with Ammiel Alcalay celebrating the publication of “SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins” by Aiden Levy, published by Hachette Books. This virtual event took place over Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/saxophone-colossus-sonny-rollins/ Aidan Levy is the author of “Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed” and editor of “Patti Smith on Patti Smith: Interviews and Encounters”. A former Leon Levy Center for Biography Fellow, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, JazzTimes, The Nation and other publications. He has served as co-convener of the African American Studies Colloquium and works with the Center for Jazz Studies at at Columbia University. For ten years, he was the baritone saxophonist in the Stan Rubin Orchestra. Ammiel Alcalay is a poet, novelist, translator, critic, and scholar. His books include “a little history”, “from the warring factions”, “Memories of Our Future”, and “After Jews and Arabs”. “Ghost Talk”, A Bibliography for “After Jews & Arabs” and “A Dove in Flight”, by Syrian poet and former political prisoner Faraj Bayrakdar, co-edited with Shareah Taleghani, all came out in 2021. "Follow the Person: Archival Encounters, and Controlled Demolition", a poem in four books, are due out in 2023. Alcalay is the founder and general editor of Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative (http://centerforthehumanities.org/lost-and-found), for which he was recognized in 2017 with a Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Zein El-Amine in conversation with James Tracy and Aimee Suzara, celebrating the publication of "Is This How You Eat a Watermelon?" by Zein El-Amine, published by Radix Media. This live event took place in the main room of City Lights and was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Is This How You Eat a Watermelon?" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/general-fiction/is-this-how-you-eat-a-watermelon-2/ Zein El-Amine is a Lebanese-born poet and writer. He has an MFA in Poetry from the University of Maryland. His poems have appeared in Wild River Review, Folio, Beltway Quarterly, Foreign Policy In Focus, CityLit, and others. His latest poetry manuscript “A Travel Guide for the Exiled” was recently shortlisted for the Bergman Prize, judged by Louise Glück. His short stories have appeared in the Uno Mas, Jadaliyya, Middle East Report, Wild River Review, About Place Journal, and in Bound Off. James Tracy is an author, organizer, and an Instructor of Labor and Community Studies at City College of San Francisco. He is the co-author of "Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times" and the author of "Dispatches Against Displacement: Field Notes From San Francisco’s Housing Wars." Aimee Suzara is a Filipino-American poet, playwright, and performer based in Oakland, CA. Her poetry and plays have been produced, adapted, and published widely, and she has collaborated with a variety of choreographers, musicians and dance companies for multidisciplinary productions. A cultural worker and professional educator for the past twenty years, she tailors and offers lectures, performances and workshops to organizations, universities, and classrooms. She’s been featured as a spoken word artist nationally, and her poems appear in numerous journals and anthologies such as Kartika Review, 580 Split, Lantern Review and Walang Hiya: Literature Taking Risks Toward Liberatory Practice, Check the Rhyme: An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees and Poets (Lit Noire Press) and her chapbooks, "the space between" and "Finding the Bones" (Finishing Line Press). An advocate for the intersection of arts and literacy, she teaches at San Francisco State University and other universities and colleges and leads workshops in poetry and performance for youth and adults. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Sam Lipsyte reading from his new novel and in conversation with Sloane Crosley. Sam Lipsyte celebrates the publication of his novel “No One Left to Come Looking for You” by Simon & Schuster. This was a virtual event and was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "No One Left to Come Looking for You" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/no-1-left-to-come-looking-for-you/ Sam Lipsyte is the author of the story collections “Venus Drive” and “The Fun Parts” and four novels: “Hark”, “The Ask” (a New York Times Notable Book), “The Subject Steve”, and “Home Land”, which was a New York Times Notable Book and received the Believer Book Award. His fiction has appeared in “The New Yorker”, “The Paris Review”, and “Best American Short Stories”, among other places. The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, he lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University. Sloane Crosley is the author of The New York Times bestselling essay collections, “I Was Told There’d Be Cake” (a 2009 finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor) and “How Did You Get This Number”, as well as “Look Alive Out There” (a 2019 finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor) and the bestselling novel, “The Clasp”. She served as editor of The Best American Travel Writing series and is featured in The Library of America’s 50 Funniest American Writers, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Phillip Lopate’s "The Contemporary American Essay" and others. She is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Her new novel, “Cult Classic”, is out now. Her next nonfiction book, “Grief Is for People”, will be published in 2024. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Douglas Kearney reading from his new book and in conversation with Tisa Bryant. Douglas Kearney celebrates his collection of lectures "Optic Subwoof" published by Wave Books. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Optic Subwoof" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/optic-subwoof/ Douglas Kearney has published seven poetry collections, including "Sho" (Wave 2021), which was a finalist for the National Book Award, PEN Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and "Buck Studies" (Fence Books, 2016), winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Award, the CLMP Firecracker Award for Poetry, and the California Book Award silver medal for poetry. M. NourbeSe Philip calls Kearney’s collection of libretti, "Someone Took They Tongues" (Subito, 2016), “a seismic, polyphonic mash-up.” Kearney’s "Mess and Mess and" (Noemi Press, 2015), was a Small Press Distribution Handpicked Selection that Publisher’s Weekly called “an extraordinary book.” He has received a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, residencies/fellowships from Cave Canem, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and others. Kearney teaches Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities and lives in St. Paul with his family. Tisa Bryant teaches fiction and non-fiction, mythologies, cross-cultural/cross-genre/hybrid writing, and much more at Calarts. She is the author of the book "Unexplained Presence" (Leon Works, 2007), her first full-length book, is a collection of original, hybrid essays that remix narratives from film, literature and visual arts and zoom in on the black presences operating within them. An excerpt from her novella, "[the curator]", was published by Belladonna Books in 2009, in a companion volume with writer Chris Kraus. She is also the author of the chapbook, "Tzimmes" (A+Bend Press, 2000), a prose poem collage of narratives including a Barbados genealogy, a Passover seder and a film by Yvonne Rainer. She is interested in archives, hybrid forms, mythologies, ethnicity and innovation, the interdependence of experimental and conventional fiction, cinematic novels and ekphrastic writing. Bryant’s writing has appeared in "Evening Will Come", "Mandorla", "Mixed Blood", "in the ‘zine", "Universal Remote: Meditations on the Absence of Michael Jackson" and in the catalogues and solo shows of visual artists Laylah Ali, Jaime Cortez, Wura-Natasha Ogunji and Cauleen Smith. She is co-editor, with Ernest Hardy, of "War Diaries", an anthology of black gay male desire and survival, from AIDS Project Los Angeles, which was nominated Best LGBTQ anthology by the LAMBDA Literary Awards. She is also co-editor/publisher of the hardcover cross-referenced literary/arts series, "The Encyclopedia Project", which recently released Encyclopedia Vol. 2 F-K. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

In conjunction with ALTA Journal, City Lights presents John Freeman with Forrest Gander reading from new poetry. John Freeman celebrates his new collection of poetry "Wind, Trees" published by Copper Canyon Press. This live event took place in Kerouac Alley, between City Lights and Vesuvio Cafe, and was hosted by Peter Maravelis with an opening statement by Blaise Zerega. You can purchase copies of "Wind, Trees" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/wind-trees/ John Freeman is the founder of the literary annual Freeman’s, and an executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. His books include "How To Read a Novelist" and "Dictionary of the Undoing", as well as a trilogy of anthologies about inequality, including "Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation," and "Tales of Two Planets," which features dispatches from around the world, where the climate crisis has unfolded at crucially different rates. His poetry collections include "Maps" and "The Park." His work has been translated into more than twenty languages and appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Orion and Zyzzyva. He is a former editor of Granta and a Writer in Residence at New York University. Forrest Gander is a Pulitzer Prize Winning poet, author, translator, and essayist. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, and essays. "Twice Alive" is his latest collection of poetry. His translations include the work of Gozo Yoshimasu, Pablo Neruda, Alfonso D’Aquino, and Raúl Zurita. He has received numerous honors for his work, including the Pulitzer Prize for "Be With," and the Best Translated Book Award, as well as fellowships from the Library of Congress, the Guggenheim Foundation, and United States Artists. He makes his home in Northern California. Alta Journal is a quarterly publication for anyone seeking an insider’s take on this most forward-thinking region. From arts and culture, to technology and the environment, to food and fashion—what happens ​​​​​​in California and the West happens everywhere. Each large-format issue (the West demands a wide lens) demystifies the region with provocative essays, cultural commentary, deeply reported investigations, original fiction and poetry, sumptuous photos, topical cartoons, and more. Founded in 2017 by William R. Hearst III, Alta Journal provides an exciting—and much-needed—literary perspective on the West, sparking conversations that are as diverse and vibrant as the place itself. In this era of rapid change, the award-winning Alta Journal offers an immersive reading experience like no other. To learn more visit: https://www.altaonline.com/ This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Tayi Tibble in conversation with Tommy Orange, celebrating the publication of "Poukahangatus: Poems" by Tayi Tibble, published by Alfred Knopf. This live event took place in Kerouac Alley, between City Lights and Vesuvio Cafe, and was hosted by Peter Maravelis with an opening statement by John Freeman. You can purchase copies of "Poukahangatus: Poems" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/poukahangatus-poems/ Tayi Tibble (Te Whānau ā Apanui/Ngāti Porou) was born in 1995 and lives in Wellington, New Zealand. In 2017, she completed a master’s degree in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University of Wellington, where she was the recipient of the Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing. Her second book of poetry, Rangikura, will be published in the United States in 2023. Tommy Orange is the PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD WINNER and best selling author of the novel There,There. He is a graduate of the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. An enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, he was born and raised in Oakland, California. John Freeman is the editor of Freeman’s, a literary annual of new writing, and executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. His books include "How to Read a Novelist" and "Dictionary of the Undoing," as well as "Tales of Two Americas," an anthology about income inequality in America, and "Tales of Two Planets," an anthology of new writing about inequality and the climate crisis globally. He is also the author of two poetry collections, "Maps" and "The Park." His work is translated into more than twenty languages, and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The New York Times. The former editor of Granta, he teaches writing at New York University. He has a new collection of poetry, published by Copper Canyon Press, being released in the fall titled "Wind, Trees." This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation