KGB Bar

Monday, February 22, brings two poets from the crossroads of Language poetry, the New York School, Beat vision, 1970s activism, the American experimental, inquiries into consciousness and the birth of cool. Zen searching, collage, abstract art, and disembodied poetics may also apply.

Both poets are visiting from Out West—it will be a rare chance to see them read together.

Anne Waldman is the co-founder, with Allen Ginsberg, of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. She directed the St. Mark’s Poetry project from 1966-1978. She is author of more than 40 books of poetry, most recently Manatee/Humanity.  Read poems at: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/523

Mei-mei Berssenbrugge is the author of 12 books of poetry, most recently I Love Artists, New and Selected Poems from the University of California Press, and Concordance, a collaboration with artist Kiki Smith from Kelsey Street Press. Fog, another collaboration with Smith was produced as an artist’s book in 2009 at the Brodsky Center.  She lives in New York City and northern New Mexico.  Read poems at http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/989.