Wednesdays at Four Plus:
Outstanding season planned for popular literary series

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Services Editor

Under poets Robert Creeley and Charles Bernstein, the annual series at UB has hosted hundreds of distinguished contemporary poets, critics, fiction writers and literary performance artists from five continents. It also has focused on emerging postmodernist writers, many of whom have worked as poetics fellows in the Poetics Program in the UB Department of English.

All events will take place on the UB North Campus unless otherwise indicated. All are free of charge and open to the public.

Individual writers who will read or lecture are W.S. Merwin, Pulitzer Prizewinning American writer who will present the Silverman Poetry Reading on Nov. 8; virtuosic poet Thom Gunn (Oct. 21); Pulitzer Prizewinning modernist poet John Ashbery (Oct. 12); poet Leslie Scalapino (Oct. 23-24); novelist Gilbert Sorrentino (Oct. 11); critic and translator Serge Gavronsky (Oct. 16); confrontational poet/playwright Amiri Baraka (Oct. 11), and popular mystery novelist Lawrence Block (Oct. 9).

"LINEbreak," a nationally syndicated arts interview program produced by Martin Spinelli of the UB Department of English and hosted by Gray Chair Professor of English Charles Bernstein, will premiere on Sept. 9 on WBFO-FM, the National Public Radio affiliate operated by UB. The show will feature Bernstein's interviews with poets and fiction writers, some of whom have visited Buffalo in connection with Wednesdays at 4 Plus.

On Oct. 3, a Translation Colloquium will feature translator John Felstiner and poet-translator Armand Schwerner, with commentary by Jerome Rothenberg and UB faculty members Dennis Tedlock and Ray Federman.

From Oct. 10-12, UB will present a 70th birthday tribute to Robert Creeley. The founder of Wednesdays at 4 Plus, Creeley holds the Samuel P. Capen Chair in Poetry and the Humanities at UB and has earned international distinction as a highly influential 20th-century American poet. Ashbery, Sorrentino and Baraka will be featured in connection with this event, as will painter Jim Dine, with whom Creeley has collaborated on a number of projects. The celebration will include an exhibition by the UB Libraries' Poetry/Rare Books Collection titled "Here: Fifty Years of Poetry in Buffalo" and a performance by jazz greats Steve Kuhn and Carol Fredette.

Poetry translator Pierre Joris of SUNY Albany will present a talk on Sept. 25, and 1996 UB poetics fellow Susan Schultz, author of the critical work "The Tribe of John Ashbery and Contemporary Poetry," will lecture on Oct. 10 and present a reading from her work on Nov. 13.

Multimedia performance artist (and champion weightlifter) Leslie Heywood, author of "Dedication to Hunger: The Anorexic Aesthetic in Modern Culture," will present a performance piece on Oct. 30. The legendary Al Cook, prolific critic, poet and former UB English professor who established the study of poetics at UB, will lecture on Oct. 18.

On Nov. 20, the university will present its third annual French Poetry Festival featuring presentations by psychoanalyst, artist, editor and poet Josee Lapeyrere; poetry editor Yves Di Manno, and novelist, poet and art critic Bernard Noel.

Other literary visitors to read at UB include essayist Hank Lazer (Nov. 13); Canadian publisher, poet and editor Deanna Ferguson (Sept. 18); poet Eileen Myles (Oct. 10), and poet Barrett Watten and Australian writer John Kinsella (Nov. 6).