Readings in Contemporary Poetry

Patricia Spears Jones and Christopher Stackhouse

Tuesday, November 1, 2016, 6:30 pm, Dia Chelsea

Add to calendar Event Details Tuesday, November 1, 2016, 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 recommended. Tickets are also available for purchase at the door, subject to availability. Patricia Spears Jones Patricia Spears Jones is a poet, playwright, and literary curator who lives and works in New York. She is the author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems (White Pine Press, 2015) as well as six collections of poems and two plays commissioned and produced by Mabou Mines. She is a contributing editor at BOMB magazine and a fellow emeritus at the Black Earth Institute, Wisconsin. She has an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier. Trabajan la sal y el azucar/Construyendo una torre blanca? Pablo Neruda Do salt and sugar work to build a white tower?No, they do not speak to each other. Salt and pepper are masonsbuildingthe perfect blanka beautiful stark White on white walls thick--whole cities surrounded withlustrous black roadways—jeweled paths daunt It is curiosity Senor Neruda that forms the white foundationsthat rise platform after platform floor by floor into air— Tower as look out.What is seen—the enemy approaching? Or Lot’s wife dissolving—myth and punishmentelevator and aperture—the eye apparent. But where are their tools? put aside for dazzle 2.Sugar tastes like sex, surpriseSalt and pepper become sun and water or lobby and floor. Oh these white towers spiced with story, precariousplatform after platform, floor by floor falling into ruin, reverie---blanco, negro, mustard, sienna, and beryl. Christopher Stackhouse Christopher Stackhouse is a critic, poet, and teacher based in New York. The book Seismosis (1913 Press, 2006) features line drawings by Stackhouse with text by writer and translator John Keene. His most recent volume of poems, Plural, was published by Counterpath Press in 2012. He has an MFA in writing and interdisciplinary studies from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Company This is spare. This is abstract. This is a block of textbefore it can become a block of text. It is predisposedto being read. It is given to content, the balance bestowedupon an even number of lines. This is formation and belief.This proves the generative quality of death. It is autumnal.This is arrival and departure. This is terse, lateral, style.This plastic toy perspires. It is drawn. It breathes intoa person. It takes the air, and gives it back untouched.

Photo: Don Stahl

Event Details

Tuesday, November 1, 2016, 6:30 pm

Dia:Chelsea
535 West 22nd Street, 5th Floor
New 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 recommended. Tickets are also available for purchase at the door, subject to availability.

Patricia Spears Jones

Patricia Spears Jones is a poet, playwright, and literary curator who lives and works in New York. She is the author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems (White Pine Press, 2015) as well as six collections of poems and two plays commissioned and produced by Mabou Mines. She is a contributing editor at BOMB magazine and a fellow emeritus at the Black Earth Institute, Wisconsin. She has an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts, Montpelier.

Trabajan la sal y el azucar/Construyendo una torre blanca?
Pablo Neruda
Do salt and sugar work to build a white tower?
No, they do not speak to each other.

Salt and pepper are masons
building
the perfect blank
a beautiful stark

White on white walls thick--whole cities surrounded with
lustrous black roadways—jeweled paths daunt

It is curiosity Senor Neruda that forms the white foundations
that rise platform after platform floor by floor into air—

Tower as look out.
What is seen—the enemy approaching? Or

Lot’s wife dissolving—myth and punishment
elevator and aperture—the eye apparent.

But where are their tools? put aside for dazzle

2.
Sugar tastes like sex, surprise
Salt and pepper become sun and water or lobby and floor.

Oh these white towers spiced with story, precarious
platform after platform, floor by floor falling into ruin, reverie---
blanco, negro, mustard, sienna, and beryl.

Christopher Stackhouse

Christopher Stackhouse is a critic, poet, and teacher based in New York. The book Seismosis (1913 Press, 2006) features line drawings by Stackhouse with text by writer and translator John Keene. His most recent volume of poems, Plural, was published by Counterpath Press in 2012. He has an MFA in writing and interdisciplinary studies from the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

Company

This is spare. This is abstract. This is a block of text
before it can become a block of text. It is predisposed
to being read. It is given to content, the balance bestowed
upon an even number of lines. This is formation and belief.
This proves the generative quality of death. It is autumnal.
This is arrival and departure. This is terse, lateral, style.
This plastic toy perspires. It is drawn. It breathes into
a person. It takes the air, and gives it back untouched.