"Wednesdays at 4 PLUS" to Offer Films, Digital Poetry Showcase

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- "Wednesdays at 4 PLUS," the bi-annual series presented by the Poetics Program in the University at Buffalo Department of English, will stray from its usual format of poetry and prose readings this fall with a diverse lineup that includes film screenings, a digital poetry showcase and a symposium on "language and encoding," as well as the traditional readings by pre-eminent poets and novelists.

Among those pre-eminent writers will be award-winning novelist J.M. Coetzee, poet and author Johanna Drucker, poet and magazine editor Keith Waldrop and K'iche' Maya poet Humberto Ak'abal.

Coetzee, a UB faculty member from 1968-71, will deliver the Edward H. Butler Chair Prose Reading at 8 p.m. Oct. 17 in the Screening Room in the Center for the Arts (CFA) on the UB North (Amherst) Campus. A native of South Africa, he twice has won the Booker Prize, Great Britain's highest award for fiction, for his post-colonial novels "The Life and Times of Michael K." (1984) and "Disgrace" (1999). He currently teaches at the University of Cape Town and the University of Chicago.

In conjunction with Coetzee's appearance at UB, the University Libraries will organize an exhibit of the author's work, to be installed in Lockwood Library, North (Amherst) Campus.

In addition, the Libraries will present two supporting programs the day before Coetzee's reading.

A brown-bag lunch video screening of the 1997 documentary "Gerrie & Louise" will be held from noon to 2 p.m. Oct. 16 in the Friends Room in Lockwood Library. The film, directed by Sturla Gunnarsson, tells the story of Louise Flanagan, chief investigator of the Truth Commission in the Eastern Cape Province, and her husband, Gerrie Hugo, a seasoned veteran of apartheid South Africa's army. The film will be introduced by Claude Welch, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the UB Department of Political Science.

Later that day, from 4-5:30 p.m. in the Special Collections Reading Room, 420 Capen Hall, North (Amherst) Campus, a discussion of Coetzee's works will be held. Among the participants will be Hershini Bhana and UB faculty members Mark Shechner, professor of English; Shaun Irlam, associate professor and chair of the Department of Comparative Literature, and Carine Mardorossian, assistant professor of English.

Drucker, whose most recent book is "A Girl's Life," a collaboration with Susan Bee, will give a poetry reading at 4 p.m. Oct. 23 in the CFA Screening Room. She also will speak at 12:30 p.m. Oct. 24 in 438 Clemens Hall on the North (Amherst) Campus. Drucker is Robertson Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. Her critical books include "The Visible Word," "Theorizing Modernism," "The Century of Artists' Books" and "Figuring the Word."

Waldrop's most recent books include "Analogies of Escape;" "Haunt;" the trilogy "The Locality Principle," "The Silhouette of the Bridge" and "Semiramis if I Remember," and the novel "Light While There Is Light." He and his wife, Rosmarie Waldrop -- author of "Reluctant Gravities," "Split Infinites" and "Another Language: Selected Poems" -- will give a poetry reading at 4 p.m. Nov. 20 in the CFA Screening Room. They also will lecture at 12:30 p.m. Nov. 21 in 438 Clemens Hall. The Waldrops co-edit the literary magazine Burning Deck Press, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2001.

Ak'abal, a K'iche' Maya poet from Guatemala who writes in both K'iche' and Spanish, has had his work translated into French, English, German and Italian. In 1993 he won the Quetzal de Oro prize. He will read from his work at 4 p.m. Oct. 9 in 420 Capen Hall, and will lecture the following day at 3:30 p.m. in 540 Clemens.

Among the more unusual offerings in this year's schedule will be screenings of films by Abigail Child and Henry Hills.

A poet as well as a filmmaker, Child makes experimental films that have been called "distinguished by their frenetic montage of original and archival images and use of sound as a concrete, rather than complementary, element." The program, scheduled for 4 p.m. Oct. 2 in the CFA Screening Room, will include a reading of her poetry by Child, as well as a film screening. Child's appearance is part of the Writers Making Film Series.

Hills will appear at a screening of his work at 4 p.m. Oct. 30 in the CFA Screening Room. He will lecture, give a demonstration and lead a discussion at 12:30 p.m. Oct. 31 in 438 Clemens. A leading figure of contemporary American avant-garde film, Hills has made 22 short films since 1975, including "Radio Adios," "Money" and "SOS," featuring a full array of innovative poets, dancers and musicians. His films have been described as "intensely rhythmic, hovering somewhere between music and writing."

The Digital Poetry Showcase, featuring the work of graduate students from the departments of Media Study and English, will highlight outstanding, innovative works exploring text and image in new media. Co-presented with the Electronic Poetry Center, the showcase will be held at 4 p.m. Sept. 18 in the CFA Screening Room.

"Language and Encoding," a symposium on issues of language, expression and computer code in emergent media, will be held from 6-10 p.m. Nov. 8 in Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in The Tri-Main Center, 2495 Main St., Buffalo, and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Nov. 9 in the Jacobs Executive Development Center, 672 Delaware Ave., Buffalo. Featured artists, programmers and scholars will include Lev Manovich, Phoebe Sengers, Alex Galloway, Michael Mateas, David Rokeby, Marc Böhlen and Loss Pequeño Glazier. The symposium is co-curated by the Department of Media Study.

Among other highlights of "Wednesdays at 4 PLUS," will be the Oscar Silverman Annual Poetry Reading to be given at 8 p.m. Nov. 8 in Baird Hall on the UB North (Amherst) Campus by Stephen Dobyns, who has authored eight volumes of poetry 18 novels -- mostly mystery/thrillers -- and a book of essays, "Best Words, Best Order."

For a complete list of events, visit http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/poetics/calendar/fall02.html. All events will be free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. For more information, call 645-3810 or email Mdunlap@acsu.buffalo.edu. The Poetics Program Web site at http://epc.buffalo.edu/poetics contains updates and additional information.

"Wednesdays at 4 PLUS" is sponsored, in part, by the James H. McNulty Chair, Department of English (Dennis Tedlock); the Samuel P. Capen Chair of Poetry and the Humanities (Robert Creeley); the David Gray Chair of Poetry and Letters, Department of English (Charles Bernstein); the Melodia E. Jones Chair in French, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures (Gerard Bucher); The Poetry and Rare Books Collection (Robert Bertholf); The Butler Chair (Department of English), Professors Susan Howe, Myung Mi Kim and Barbara Bono (Department of English); the Just Buffalo Literary Center, and Poets and Writers with funding through a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.

The series is produced with the cooperation of the Center for the Arts, the UB Department of Media Study, the UB Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Talking Leaves Books.

The Writers Making Film Series, which includes the appearance of Abigail Child, is curated by Caroline Koebel of the UB Department of Media Study; "Digital Poetry 2002" is curated by Loss Pequeño Glazier, director of UB's Electronic Poetry Center, and "Language & Encoding" is curated by Glazier and Marc Böhlen of the UB Department of Media Study.