Poet Anselm Berrigan, Friday, March 20
Anselm Berrigan, author of multiple chapbooks, poetry collections, and a spoken-word CD, will present a reading at Buffalo State on Friday, March 20, at 11:00 a.m. in the Campbell Student Union Assembly Hall.*
Berrigan is a poet and educator with a strong tie to the Western New York literary community.
"I went to school at UB in the early 1990s and began writing poetry in Buffalo," said Berrigan. "My father used to live in Buffalo and taught at UB for a few months, if I remember right. So there's a long connection with the city."
Berrigan’s history is also steeped in poetics. He is the son of poets Alice Notley and the late Ted Berrigan, stepson of the late English poet and prose writer Douglas Oliver, brother of poet Edmund Berrigan, and husband of poet Karen Weiser.
While at the University at Buffalo, he served as editor of the student newspaper, the Spectrum, and the paper’s entertainment supplement, the Prodigal Sun. He received his bachelor of arts in English in 1994. Since graduating, Berrigan has made frequent return visits to Buffalo for reading engagements and been a guest instructor at Just Buffalo Literary Center.
After settling in New York City, Berrigan served as director for the famed Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church from 2003 to 2007. He has taught writing at Brooklyn College, Rutgers, Pratt Institute, and the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. He is currently co-chair of the summer M.F.A. program in the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College and a visiting writer in the English Department at Wesleyan University.
"Working with students makes me hone in on aspects of writing and poetry on a micro level," said Berrigan. "The questions students ask are usually very much to the point, and so you have to be on your toes if you are creating the kind of environment in which students feel comfortable enough to ask a lot of questions."
"Working with students makes me hone in on aspects of writing and poetry on a micro level," said Berrigan. "The questions students ask are usually very much to the point, and so you have to be on your toes if you are creating the kind of environment in which students feel comfortable enough to ask a lot of questions."
His new book, Free Cell, will be published later this year by City Lights Books. "The best way to describe it is that it's about saying something ordinary while thinking something strange—and using that as an entry point to a tracking of consciousness on its various levels."
*Note: This is a rescheduled event. The original date was Thursday, February 19, at 4:30 p.m. in E. H. Butler Library 210.*
Berrigan is a poet and educator with a strong tie to the Western New York literary community.
"I went to school at UB in the early 1990s and began writing poetry in Buffalo," said Berrigan. "My father used to live in Buffalo and taught at UB for a few months, if I remember right. So there's a long connection with the city."
Berrigan’s history is also steeped in poetics. He is the son of poets Alice Notley and the late Ted Berrigan, stepson of the late English poet and prose writer Douglas Oliver, brother of poet Edmund Berrigan, and husband of poet Karen Weiser.
While at the University at Buffalo, he served as editor of the student newspaper, the Spectrum, and the paper’s entertainment supplement, the Prodigal Sun. He received his bachelor of arts in English in 1994. Since graduating, Berrigan has made frequent return visits to Buffalo for reading engagements and been a guest instructor at Just Buffalo Literary Center.
After settling in New York City, Berrigan served as director for the famed Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church from 2003 to 2007. He has taught writing at Brooklyn College, Rutgers, Pratt Institute, and the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. He is currently co-chair of the summer M.F.A. program in the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College and a visiting writer in the English Department at Wesleyan University.
"Working with students makes me hone in on aspects of writing and poetry on a micro level," said Berrigan. "The questions students ask are usually very much to the point, and so you have to be on your toes if you are creating the kind of environment in which students feel comfortable enough to ask a lot of questions."
"Working with students makes me hone in on aspects of writing and poetry on a micro level," said Berrigan. "The questions students ask are usually very much to the point, and so you have to be on your toes if you are creating the kind of environment in which students feel comfortable enough to ask a lot of questions."
His new book, Free Cell, will be published later this year by City Lights Books. "The best way to describe it is that it's about saying something ordinary while thinking something strange—and using that as an entry point to a tracking of consciousness on its various levels."
*Note: This is a rescheduled event. The original date was Thursday, February 19, at 4:30 p.m. in E. H. Butler Library 210.*
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