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“I am writing to you as an act of / immolation, relief…” Allison Benis White reads from her third poetry collection, Please Bury Me in This (Four Way Books, 2017), which won the 2018 University of North Texas Rilke Prize.
Ted Berrigan, a prominent figure in the second generation of the New York School of Poets, is best known for his book The Sonnets (Lorenz and Ellen Gude, 1964). Berrigan’s sonnets were assembled using collage techniques. For instance, many of the lines are found text from outside sources, and many of the individual lines are recycled throughout the book; two of the sonnets even use the exact same fourteen lines, presented in different orders. This week, try writing your own Berrigan-style sonnet (free verse or rhyming, as you please). Create a bank of individual lines—these could be original lines that you write, found text, or some combination—and then assemble these lines into a sonnet. Allow the poem to be nonlinear, if that is what the process calls for, and travel down unexpected trains of thought.
Writer’s Atelier is a place writers can visit to associate or network with other writers and improve their craft. They provide a variety of editing and consulting services for writers as well. The facility hosts literary group gatherings, writing workshops, book signings and readings, writing and reading groups and clubs, open mic events, and other small literary events.
The Writers House at Rutgers University-Camden cultivates and celebrates the writing arts. Programming goes year-round, and is always open to both students and the public: programs such as Writers in Camden, an NEA-supported reading series, the annual Summer Writers’ Conference, and the Cooper Street Writers Workshops, unite artists and scholars, students and citizens, around the power of the written word.
Writespace is a grassroots literary arts organization founded by writers, for writers. Writespace hosts its national literary festival, Writefest, in March of each year, and its local literary festival, Writers’ Family Reunion, in August of each year. In addition to offering regular weekly workshops, Writespace offers manuscript consultations, readings, write-ins, open mics, and classes and private lessons for young writers.
Sigrid Nunez on writing as religion; a history of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; fiction writers on how to write about sex; and other news.
Poet and painter John Giorno gives a tour of his home on the Bowery in New York City and points out William Burroughs’s former bunker bedroom, kept intact with his bed, typewriters, and a bull’s-eye target. The building was a frequent hangout of artists including Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Mark Rothko, and Robert Rauschenberg.
The bookstore hosts a variety of book signings, discussions, readings, and literary events throughout the year.
Atomic Books, a small independent bookstore in the Hampden neighborhood of Baltimore, was reopened by Benn Ray and Rachel Whang in 2001. Specializing in unusual literature and comic books, the store hosts author events and readings, including the Atomic Book Club and the Atomic Fiction Series.
