The National Poetry Foundation (NPF) is hosting the last in their sequence of “decade” conferences, this one focused on the 1990s, American and international. The conference, The Poetry & Poetics of the 1990s, will be held June 28 – July 1, 2017 here at UMaine.
The conference will focus on poetic practice in the decade of the 1990s. What emerged? What changed? What happened just out of frame? What connections brought poetry into dialog with other fields? What social and political contexts mattered most? What of the present can be traced back to that moment? What poets, poetic formations, tendencies in poetics warrant our continued attention? What accidents of reception might we now revisit and perhaps repair?
As with previous NPF conferences, the scholarly presentations and panels will be complemented by numerous poetry readings, including plenary readings by notable figures associated with the decade being explored. In addition, there will be a book fair. (The above description was pilfered, with permission, from the NPF website).
The National Poetry Foundation is a group who focuses on modern and contemporary poetry and poetics at UMaine. They award the Edna St. Vincent Millay Prize to recognize achievements in poetry at UMaine and is co-sponsor with the Department of English of the UMaine New Writing Series.
Please go to the NPF website to register (free for graduate students!).
UMHC is a partial sponsor of The Poetry & Poetics of the 1990s.
Schedule (courtesy of the NPF website):
WEDNESDAY | JUNE 28, 2017
Venue: Buchanan Alumni House
6:30pm Opening reception (buffet and cash bar)
THURSDAY | JUNE 29, 2017
Venue: DP Corbett
10:00am First round of panels & roundtables
11:30pm Box lunches and open forum
12:45pm Second round of panels
2:30pm Third round of panels
Venue: IMRC Center – Stewart Commons
4:30pm Plenary poetry reading by Ron Silliman
8:00pm Featured reading by Jena Osman
8:30pm Featured reading by Rod Smith
9:00pm Featured reading by Lee Ann Brown
9:30pm Featured reading by Elizabeth Willis
10:15pm Late night readings curated by Jason Mitchell
FRIDAY | JUNE 30, 2017
Venue: DP Corbett
10:00am Fourth round of panels & roundtables
11:30pm Box lunches and open forum
12:45pm Fifth round of panels
2:30pm Sixth round of panels
Venue: IMRC Center – Stewart Commons
4:30pm Special event: Jayne Cortez, Adrienne Rich and the Feminist Superhero
Venue: Wells Conference Center
6:00pm Banquet – preregistration required
Venue: IMRC Center – Stewart Commons
8:30pm Featured reading by Prageeta Sharma
9:00pm Featured reading by Jennifer Moxley
9:30pm Featured reading by David Trinidad
10:15pm Late night readings curated by Jason Mitchell
SATURDAY | JULY 1, 2017
Venue: DP Corbett
10:00am Seventh round of panels & roundtables
11:30pm Box lunches and open forum
12:45pm Eighth round of panels & roundtables
2:30pm Ninth round of panels & roundtables
Venue: IMRC Center – Stewart Commons
4:30pm Plenary poetry reading by Myung Mi Kim
8:00pm Featured reading by Erica Hunt
8:30pm Featured reading by Benjamin Friedlander
9:00pm Featured reading by James Thomas Stevens
9:30pm Featured reading by Dodie Bellamy
10:15pm Late night readings curated by Jason Mitchell