Robert Grenier Reading / October 5, 2006
Event Report
An audience of approximately forty people turned out for poet Robert Grenier’s reading in the UMaine New Writing Series on Thursday, October 5, 2006.
Grenier interpreted his hand-drawn notebook poems from slides projected onto the Soderberg Auditorium’s large screen. The first set of slides, showing poems composed in the early spring of 2006, explored the natural landscape of Connecticut. After a short break, Grenier showed a second set of slides, rooted in the environment of Bolinas, California, where he has long made his home. Grenier offered a running commentary on the process by which his “drawn” poems are made, their quatrain-like character (four words, four colors), their relationship to conventional mimesis and the history of poetry, the ecological imperatives underpinning them, and the activity required of readers, including himself, of deciphering them.
Audience members asked questions and assisted in the reading at various points.
For the full photoset, visit our Flickr page here.