This Friday:

2-UP is pleased to announce its newest edition, a collaborative poster created by video artist Zerek Kempf and poet Cathy Park Hong. This is the third in a series of collaborative poster editions to be produced by 2-UP in the coming year. Please join us for a launch party hosted by Triple Canopy on Friday, April 30th at 8:00PM at 177 Livingston, Brooklyn, NY 11201 (the shared home of Triple Canopy, The Public School New York, and Light Industry).

Combining image and text, Kempf and Hong present a double-sided poster that reflects on industry and its effects on human interaction. Hong's contribution is inspired by the tradition of the poster as socialist propaganda. Riffing on and questioning Tatlin’s celebration of the machine aesthetic, she utilizes a DIY zine-like style of collage and drawings. The images and text are drawn from her recent writings about industrializing Chinese boom towns. Using a fragment of Hong's writing, Kempf takes on the more formal aspects of text. He positions hand-cut and taped letters in the corner of his studio to photograph. Skewed from the vantage of the camera, the view is further impaired by a suspended flurry of wood blocks. This interjection into the image is caused by a force which, though unseen, effects the visible interior of the frame.

For the occasion of the reception, Kempf and Hong have created a site specific, temporary video installation, to be projected at 177 Livingston. At 9:00PM, there will be a reading/performance by special guest Thomas Sayers Ellis and Hong.

Comprised of 16 artists and writers, each month 2-UP pairs two of its members together to produce a double-sided poster, packaged in twos. The content of each poster is entirely a product of the participants ‘up’ each month. The complete series of 2-UP editions is available for a modest subscription fee; individual editions are available for a suggested donation of $2. Production of each poster is funded by monthly contributions from each member, with all proceeds from the sale of posters re-invested into the project. 2-UP aims to produce low-cost multiples in large editions, guided by the idea that the value of art can exist independently of money and irrespective of rarity.

www.twoup.org serves as a record of the project that includes images of each month’s poster and documentation of the collaborative process.

The fourth installment of 2-UP will feature Ben Dowell and Mores McWreath, and will be available in May 2010.

Initiated by Adam Shecter and Joe Winter, 2-UP is Nathan Lee + Monika Zarzeczna, Davina Semo + Colleen Asper, Ben Dowell + Mores Mcwreath, Cathy Park Hong + Zerek Kempf, Glen Fogel + Craig Kalpakjian, Joe Winter + Christian Hawkey, Cate Marvin + Benjamin Kress, Adam Shecter + Matthea Harvey.

For additional information, please email info@twoup.org

I'll be taking part in the Juniper Literary Festival! Information below:

10th ANNUAL JUNIPER LITERARY FESTIVAL
Celebrating 10 Years of jubilat
April 23 & 24, 2010

The 10th annual Juniper Literary Festival honors jubilat's decade of award-winning publishing. Inspired by the journal's adventurous spirit, the festival will explore the national literary landscape and the Pioneer Valley's unique contributions to it. Events include readings and panels by jubilat editors and friends, a tour of Antonio Frasconi's poetic woodcuts, an original performance based on Christopher Smart's “Jubilate Agno,” and a fair showcasing over 50 of the nation's most exciting literary magazines and presses.

Friday April 23

3:30 pm Eric Carle Museum: Antonio Frasconi Exhibit Tour: curator tours of the internationally acclaimed artist's woodcuts, including works inspired by Pablo Neruda and W.S. Merwin

4:30 pm: Eric Carle Museum: Roundtable: On Poetry & The Visual Arts: Jen Bervin, Terrance Hayes, & Matthea Harvey, moderated by Jane Curley

6 pm: Fine Arts Center Lobby: Independent Journal & Book Fair Opening Reception

7:30 pm: University Gallery: Reading & Performance: Jen Bervin, Christian Hawkey, & Michael Teig, followed by the premier of a performance based on Christopher Smart's “Jubilate Agno,” staged by Missoula Oblongata

Saturday April 24

10:30 am: Fine Arts Center Lobby: Journal & Book Fair Continues

11 am: University Gallery: Roundtable: Poetry, Publishing, & the Pioneer Valley : the dreaming up, creating, & evolving of jubilat, Verse Press/Wave Books & Rain Taxi with Rob N. Casper, Matthew Zapruder, & Eric Lorberer, moderated by Dara Wier

12:30 pm: University Gallery: Roundtable: The Future of Poetry, Part II with Heather Christle, Cathy Park Hong, Evie Shockley, & Rebecca Wolff, moderated by Rob N. Casper

3 pm: Amherst Cinema Arts Center: Reading: Terrance Hayes, Caroline Knox, Dean Young, & Matthew Zapruder

I have a few New York City readings clustered in the last week of April. Here they are!


TUESDAY:
Please come and help us celebrate LANA TURNER: A JOURNAL OF POETRY AND OPINION, sponsored by David Kirschenbaum, editor of Boog City.
Lana is being helped to her feet by the poets Timothy Donnelly, Drew Gardner, Karen Garthe, Cathy Park Hong, and Douglas Piccinnini.
Music supplied by Drew Gardner.
Cal Bedient will do the introductions.
When: Tuesday, April 27, beginning promptly at 6 p.m. and lasting one hour.
Where: Chelsea: ACA Galleries 529 West 20th Street, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10011

FRIDAY: 2up Launch
My poster collaboration with the artist Zerek Kempf will be opening next Friday evening, April 30th at the Triple Canopy space on 177 Livingston. More information TBA. For information about the 2up collective, go to http://twoup.org/2UP_current.html


Saturday: PEN World Literary Event Reading
When: Saturday, May 1
Where: Grand Gallery, National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park, New York City
What time: 6–8 p.m.
With Homero Aridjis, Ariel Dorfman, Cathy Park Hong, Inga Kuznetsova, and Marlene van Niekerk
Tickets: $5/free to PSA and PEN Members
Co-sponsored by the Poetry Society of America
Celebrate contemporary poetry with PEN and the Poetry Society of America. Six acclaimed poets join us from across the globe for an early evening of readings. Don’t miss this extraordinary lineup of poets—Mexico’s Homero Aridjis, Chile’s Ariel Dorfman, Russia’s Inga Kuznetsova, South Africa’s Marlene van Nierkerk, and Cathy Park Hong from the United States—for an evening of acclaimed verse.

I'm involved with 2 other Pen World events. Go here if interested.