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February 23 to March 25, 2019

Poetry Reading

Major Jackson and Peter Schjeldahl


Dia Chelsea

Readings in Contemporary Poetry

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05/03/2019 18:30 05/03/2019 23:45 America/New_York Major Jackson and Peter Schjeldahl Event DetailsTuesday, March 5, 2019, 6:30 pmDia:Chelsea535 West 22nd Street, 5th FloorNew York City  Readings in Contemporary Poetry curator, Vincent Katz provided an introduction for the evening's reading. Free for Dia members; $10 general admission; $6 admission for students and seniors Advance ticket purchases are recommended. Tickets are also available for purchase at the door, subject to availability.   Major Jackson’s books of poems include: Roll Deep (W. W. Norton & Company, 2015); Holding Company (W. W. Norton & Company, 2010) and Hoops (W. W. Norton & Company, 2006), both finalists for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Poetry; and Leaving Saturn (University of Georgia Press, 2002), which was awarded the Cave Canem Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. He is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts, Whiting Writers’ Award, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship for the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress. Jackson is the Richard Dennis Green and Gold University Distinguished Professor in the department of English at University of Vermont, Burlington, and a graduate faculty member of the Creative Writing Program at New York University. He serves as the poetry editor of the Harvard Review. Enchanters of Addison County      We were more than gestural, close-listening,the scent of manure writing its waft on the leavesoff Route 22A. By nightfall, our gaze fleckedlike loon cries, but no one was up for turnipsnor other roots, not least of which the clergy.Romanticism has its detractors, which is whywe lined the road with tea-lit luminariesand fresh-cut lemons. We called it making magic,then stormed the corners and porchesof General Stores, kissing whenever cars idledat four way stop signs or sought Grade A maple syrupin tin containers with painted scenes of horse-drawnfarmers plowing through snow. The silhouetted, rustedfarm equipment gave us the laidback heavenwe so often wished, and fireflies bequeathed earth stars, such blink and blank and bunk-a-bunk-bunk.And of course we wondered if we existed,and also too, the cows of the ancient pastures,and the white milk inside our headslike church spires and ice cream cones.Even after all of that cha-cha-cha, we still cameout of swimming holes shivering our hearts out. Peter Schjeldahl was born in Fargo, North Dakota, and grew up in Minnesota. He dropped out of college and moved to New York City to pursue journalism. Schjeldahl published a few books of poetry in the 1960s and 1970s, including Since 1964: New and Selected Poems (Sun, 1978), until he abandoned poetry to pursue art criticism full time. Schjeldahl has written on art for numerous publications, including Artforum, Art in America, Vanity Fair, and Vogue. He was the art critic for the Village Voice from 1990 to 1998 and has since been a staff writer at the New Yorker. His writings on art and culture have been collected in four books of criticism, including The Hydrogen Jukebox: Selected Writings of Peter Schjeldahl, 1978–1990 (University of California Press, 1991) and Let’s See: Writings on Art from the New Yorker (Thames & Hudson, 2008). Schjeldahl’s honors and awards include a Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing, a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, a Frank Jewett Mather Award, and a Howard Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. ARS  Hi How do you like this poem so far?If you like it, please let me knowDon’t be shy, step right upand praise me I need praise  Don’t worry that I will think you foolish or insincereEven if I think that, I’ll appreciate your thoughtfulnessAnd if you don’t like this poemdon’t worryConfess your dislike openly, I won’t be angryI will be able to tell you exactly how you’re wrongIt will a big relief to both of us And do you know? If more people like you tell me preciselywhat you think of me, my poems may get betterThey may get better than this one, even Do you think poetry about personal and professional and artisticinsecurity, yearnings for love and approval and honestcommunication, feelings of isolation, night sweats,paranoid imaginings, hysterical loathing and doubt andself-doubt, do you suppose writing on these topics is fun?Nor would these topics be among the Great Themesto which I’m positive I’m equal, if only youbastards would cough up some admiration, even fake it a littlefor me and my family and Art and future of humankind 1975     Dia Chelsea FALSE DD/MM/YYYY Major Jackson and Peter Schjeldahl

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