December 11, 2005
David MacAleavey & Chuck Stebelton
Sunday, December 11th
7:30 pm
New American Art Union
922 SE Ankeny Street
$5 suggested donation.
David McAleavey, originally from Kansas, attended Cornell, then went to UC Berkeley to begin a PhD in English, in 1968. Got to know Ron Silliman, David Melnick, and other poets. Dropped out of grad school, worked in SF, then returned to Ithaca, NY where he earned both an MFA and a PhD (dissertation on George Oppen). Also got involved in Ithaca House press, which published first books by Ron Silliman, David Melnick, and Bob Perelman, among others. He published his first book of poems, Sterling 403, in 1971, and began teaching at George Washington University in 1974. Other books include The Forty Days (1975), Shrine, Shelter, Cave (1980), and Holding Obsidian (1985). Chax Press published Huge Haiku this year.
Chuck Stebelton works as Literary Program Manager at Woodland Pattern Book Center, a non-profit arts organization in Milwaukee, and co-curates the Myopic Poetry Series, a weekly series of readings and occasional talks at Myopic Books in Chicago. He is the author of Circulation Flowers (Tougher Disguises, 2005) and Precious, an Answer Tag chapbook. Newer work appears in recent issues of Antennae, Jubilat, LVNG, Verse, and Chain 12: Facts. In June, 2005, along with Marcella Durand, Kristin Prevallet, Rich O’Russa and Kimberly Lyons, he read his work as part of the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena conference at Adler Planetarium in Chicago; and recently collaborated with Cindy Loehr on Revival, "a cathedral of flame with a pre-recorded oration inside."
Written Next to a Page of Emerson
You should empower all the voices, since
what is strong enough makes a pattern of itself.
The sound of a line can make the next line easy.
Or thought can: further down you'll find
clear streams connecting unfathomed blanks.
Deeper still are the big rivers that make
the ground quake, the air chill and quick.
The landscape is glorious even if the music is
Unfamiliar. It makes the brave shiver.
Think about it: what do you care if you're lost?
Wouldn't you really rather hear the music? This
is after all the plot of earth where
those of us who think talk of music
can be music
talk.
—David McAleavey
THE NINETIES
Between 1929 and 1941
without changes, without an Ars
turned to summer and all
sold to the little peeps as pets
between 1939 and 1951
often hardens, so windows snow
collective desires to collect and share
between 1949 and 1961
twenty eight leap years ago
thirty head of lamb, sheep
between 1929 and 1941
between 1959 and 1971
—Chuck Stebelton