LIVE! From City Lights

City Lights in conjunction with Naropa University and Nightboat Books present Anne Waldman with Emma Gomis, joined by Alan Gilbert, Cedar Sigo, and Eleni Sikelianos, celebrating the publication of "New Weathers: Poetics from the Naropa Archive," edited by Anne Waldman with Emma Gomis and published by Nightboat Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "New Weathers: Poetics from the Naropa Archive" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/story-anthologies/new-weathers-poetics-from-the-naropa-a/ Anne Waldman is a poet, performer, professor, literary curator, cultural activist, has been a prolific and active poet and performer many years, creating radical hybrid forms for the long poem, both serial and narrative, as with "Marriage: A Sentence," "Structure of the World Compared to a Bubble," "Manatee/Humanity," and "Gossamurmur," all published by Penguin Poets. She is also the author of the magnum opus "The Lovis Trilogy: Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment" (Coffee House Press 2011), a feminist “cultural intervention” taking on war and patriarchy which won the PEN Center 2012 Award for Poetry. Recent books include: "Voice’s Daughter of a Heart Yet To Born" (Coffee House 2016) and "Trickster Feminism" (Penguin, 2018). She has been deemed a “counter-cultural giant” by Publishers Weekly for her ethos as a poetic investigator and cultural activist, and was awarded the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for Lifetime Achievement in 2015. She has also been a recipient of numerous honors for her work including The Shelley Award for Poetry (from the Poetry Society of America), a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Elizabeth Kray Award from Poets House, NYC in 2019. She was one of the founders of the Poetry Project at St Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery, and its Director a number of years and then went on to found The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University with Allen Ginsberg and Diana di Prima in1974 and went on to create its celebrated MFA Program. She has continued to work with the Kerouac School as a Distinguished Professor of Poetics and Artistic Director of its Summer Writing Program. During the global pandemic she and co-curator Jeffrey Pethybridge have created the online “Carrier Waves” iteration of the famed Summer Writing Program. She is the editor of "The Beat Book" and co-editor of "Civil Disobediences: Poetics and Politics in Action," and "Beats at Naropa" and most recently, "Cross Worlds: Transcultural Poetics." She is a Chancellor Emeritus of the Academy of American Poets. Emma Gomis is a Catalan American poet, essayist, editor and researcher. She is the cofounder of Manifold Press. Her texts have been published in Denver Quarterly, The Berkeley Poetry Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Entropy, and Asymptote among others and her chapbook "Canxona" is forthcoming from b l u s h lit. She was selected by Patricia Spears Jones as The Poetry Project’s 2020 Brannan Poetry Prize winner. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Poetics from Naropa’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, where she was also the Anne Waldman fellowship recipient, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in criticism and culture at the University of Cambridge. To learn more about the other participants, visit: https://citylights.com/events/on-new-weathers-poetics-from-the-naropa-archive/ This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights presents Peter Turchi in conversation with Austin Kleon. Peter Turchi discusses his new book “(Don’t) Stop Me if You’ve Heard This Before (and Other Essays on Writing Fiction)”, published by Trinity University Press. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of “(Don’t) Stop Me if You’ve Heard This Before (and Other Essays on Writing Fiction)” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/dont-stop-me-if-youve-heard-this-befor/ Peter Turchi has written and coedited several books on writing fiction, including “Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer”, “A Muse and a Maze: Writing as Puzzle, Mystery, and Magic”, “A Kite in the Wind: Fiction Writers on Their Craft”, and “(Don’t) Stop Me if You’ve Heard This Before (and Other Essays on Writing Fiction)”. His stories have appeared in “Ploughshares”, “Story”, the “Alaska Quarterly Review”, “Puerto del Sol”, and the “Colorado Review”, among other journals. He has received numerous accolades, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Houston. Austin Kleon is a New York Times bestselling author. His books include “Steal Like an Artist”; “Show Your Work!”; “Keep Going”; “Steal Like An Artist Journal”; and “Newspaper Blackout”. His works focus on creativity in today’s world. He has spoken at organizations such as Pixar, Google, and TEDx, and at conferences such as The Economist’s Human Potential Summit and SXSW. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

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