Blackbird Features, v17n2

FEATURES

Levis Remembered
Here in Blackbird’s Levis Remembered reading loop you’ll find several poems by Larry Levis as well as an introduction to the winner of the 2018 Levis Reading Prize, Kaveh Akbar. The loop includes a reading by— and a conversation with—Akbar and a review of his winning collection Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James Books, 2017). Akbar’s finely wrought poems, often deeply spiritual or darkly humorous, share those same traits with the work of Levis.

The Poetry of Jazz
This album trailer establishes a context for the process composer Benjamin Boone undertook to record, alongside late poet Philip Levine, The Poetry of Jazz (Origin Records, 2018), the first of a two-volume set. The video includes clips of Levine reading his poems with live jazz accompaniment. In Nonfiction we also offer a review-essay by T.R. Hummer, “Body Swayed to Music,” that explores Levine and Boone’s accomplishment.

David Jauss & Adam Latham: Tarumoto Short Fiction Prize Reading
On April 15, 2018, David Jauss and Rebecca Mitchell Tarumoto Short Fiction Prize winner Adam Latham read at the James Branch Cabell Library as a part of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Visiting Writers Series. Jauss is the author of four collections of short stories and two books of poetry, among other works. Latham has been published in Blackbird, Mississippi Review, and storySouth. He works for the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

A Reading by Jon Pineda
On April 5, 2018, Jon Pineda gave a reading from his most recent novel, Let’s No One Get Hurt (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018) at Chop Suey Books in Richmond, Virginia. Pineda’s first novel, Apology, won the 2013 Milkweed National Fiction Prize. He is the author of three poetry collections and teaches creative writing at Queens University of Charlotte and the College of William & Mary.

A Reading by Ru Freeman & LeAnne Howe
On March 23, 2017, Ru Freeman and LeAnne Howe read as a part of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Visiting Writers Series. Freeman is the author of the novels A Disobedient Girl (Washington Square Press, 2010) and On Sal Mal Lane (Graywolf Press, 2014)‚ and editor of the anthology Extraordinary Rendition: American Writers on Palestine (Olive Branch Press, 2016). Howe’s forthcoming novel, Savage Conversations, will be published by Coffee House Press in 2019.

A Reading by Mark Doty & Lina María Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas
On October 5, 2017, Mark Doty and Lina María Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas read as a part of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Visiting Writers Series. Doty is the author of nine books of poems, including Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins, 2008). Lina María Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas holds MFAs from the University of Iowa in nonfiction writing and literary translation. She is the author of Drown/Sever/Sing (Anomalous Press, 2015) and Don’t Come Back (Mad River Books, 2017).

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