FIG + AXLE

fig+axle reading 4/17/2013

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 03:49:00 -0400

Please join us on Wednesday, April 17th @ 7:30 in Voorhies 126 for the first fig+axle Graduate Student Reading Series of the Spring Quarter. Our featured graduate readers are:

Susana Ponce Fiction
Brandon Norris Poetry
Ishelle Payer Fiction

About our readers:

Susana Ponce

Susana is pursuing a MA in Creative Writing (Fiction) at UC Davis. Her work typically explores such topics as: early childhood sexuality, human to wolf transformations, the dog movie genre, death as spectacle, and inappropriate masturbation. Of late she has obsessed on the subjects of cruelty and desire and the unsettling and sometimes beautiful ways they intersect. She is recently a vegetarian.

Brandon Norris

He studies the rhetorical similarities between jokes and poems.

He likes poesy, improv, and the comedy stylings of Bea Arthur.

He is indebted to UC Davis for their continued support and patience.

Ishelle Payer

Ishelle Payer is a California native. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of California, Davis, studying English (emphasis in creative writing) and Film Studies. She wanted to see the world, so she came back to Davis for graduate school.

Please come out and show your support for these talented writers.

See you there!

f+a

Graduate Student Reading Series - Thursday March 14th @ 730 - Voorhies 126

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:46:18 -0500

Come one, come all to March’s Graduate Student Reading. This month we have a fiction writer and two poets who will read in Voorhies 126.

Ryan Mattern is an M.A. student in the Creative Writing Program at the University of California, Davis. He earned his B.A. in Creative Writing from California State University, San Bernardino. He is the recipient of the Felix Valdez Award for short fiction. His work has appeared in Badlands, Superstition Review, Black Heart Magazine, and Poetry Quarterly, among others. He is a founding member of poetrIE, a reading series dedicated to showcasing the literary voices of California’s Inland Empire. He lives and writes in Northern California.

Brook Erin Barman holds a BA in fine art and has since been the Louise Mead Creative Writing Fellow at Syracuse University. Currently, Brook is a Master’s candidate in the UC Davis literature program where she studies poetics, aesthetics, and critical theory with emphasis in 20th and 21st century material culture, radical politics and animal studies. She has contributed to several journals, including DITCH, Gulf Coast, The Red Wheelbarrow, and The Pacific Review.

CJ Morello was raised in Chicago, studied philosophy at university, and moved to California to write poems and continue being educated. He likes the writing of Felix Feneon, Emily Dickinson, and Vasko Popa. He wants to be a writer when he grows up.

Cold War Aesthetics: The Case of Trilling and Adorno

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:37:33 -0500

The Dept. of English is very pleased to welcome Amanda Anderson, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Humanities and English at Brown University and Director of the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University.

Professor Anderson’s talk, “Cold War Aesthetics: The Case of Trilling and Adorno,” will be drawn from an in-progress book entitled “Bleak Liberalism.”

What: “Cold War Aesthetics: The Case of Trilling and Adorno”

When: March 6, 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Where: Voorhies 126. Light refreshments will be served.

In addition to many articles and two edited collections, Anderson is the author of The Way We Argue Now: A Study in the Cultures of Theory (Princeton UP, 2006), The Powers of Distance: Cosmopolitanism and the Cultivation of Detachment (Princeton UP, 2001), and Tainted Souls and Painted Faces: The Rhetoric of Fallenness in Victorian Culture (Cornell UP, 1993).

Avid Reading Feb. 16th

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:06:40 -0500

Join us at the Avid Reader in downtown Davis this Saturday for a reading by several poets including UC Davis’s own CJ Morello and Joe Wenderoth. The thrill ride kicks off at 7pm! “The Avid Reader” always makes me think “The Arid Reader” instead for some reason. Does that make me weird? Probably. Be there on Saturday!

Exploring Ecopoetics

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 22:40:18 -0500

What: “Exploring Ecopoetics: A Satellite Event of the 2013 Conference on Ecopoetics,” presented by the UC Davis English Department with co-sponsorship support from the UC Davis Humanities Institute
When: 1-3 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21
Where: Voorhies 126

Please join us for an afternoon poetry reading and discussion, featuring poets Hillary Gravendyk and Brian Teare. “Exploring Ecopoetics” is a satellite event of the 2013 Conference on Ecopoetics, to be held Feb. 22-24 at the University of California, Berkeley (http://www.ecopoeticsconference.blogspot.com/).

At “Exploring Ecopoetics,” each poet will present a brief poetics statement and read from his/her work. Then, after the reading, the poets will discuss “ecopoetics” with audience members, taking up such questions as: What is ecopoetics? What representational strategies and sociopolitical commitments might characterize this practice? How might we periodize ecopoetics and situate its modes of cultural production? The discussion will be moderated by Conference on Ecopoetics organizer Angela Hume.

“Exploring Ecopoetics” is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. Please contactamlewandowski@ucdavis.edu with any questions.

About the presenters

Hillary Gravendyk is the author of Harm (Omnidawn, 2011). An Assistant Professor of English at Pomona College in Claremont, Gravendyk’s poetry has appeared in journals such as American Letters & Commentary, Barnstorm, The Bellingham Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, The Colorado Review, The Eleventh Muse, Fourteen Hills, MARY, 1913: A Journal of Forms, Octopus Magazine, Tarpaulin Sky and other venues. She is the two-time winner of the Eisner Prize in Poetry and her chapbook, The Naturalist, was published by Achiote Press in 2008. Hillary is currently working on a critical book, Chronic Poetics, that explores intersubjectivity and embodiment in the poetic works of Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, George Oppen, and Larry Eigner. She often collaborates with the photographer Benjamin Burrill and is interested in mixed-media forms. She lives in Claremont, California.

A former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, Brian Teare is the recipient of poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, the Marin Headlands Center for the Arts and the American Antiquarian Society. He is the author of The Room Where I Was Born (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), Sight Map (University of California Press, 2009), and Pleasure (Ahsahta, 2010). His fourth book, Companion Grasses, will be out from Omnidawn in the spring of 2013. Now an Assistant Professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, Teare makes books by hand for his micropress, Albion Books.

About the moderator

Angela Hume, a Conference on Ecopoetics organizer, is the author of the chapbooks The Middle (Omnidawn, 2013) andSecond Story of Your Body (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2011). Critical work has appeared in ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, The Volta, and Evental Aesthetics. Currently she is writing a dissertation on lyric, dialectic, and ecology at University of California, Davis.

Graduate Student Reading Series Feb. 14th

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 19:56:00 -0500

Come one, come all to the next installment of the fig+axle graduate student reading series! Featuring the ample talents of Art MIddleton (our host!), Christina Magaña, and Kurt Wooden. Come to Voorhies 126 at 8pm on February the 14th for a night of poems, prose, and possibly prophecy.

Christina Magaña

Christina Magaña is a graduate student in creative writing (poetry) at the University of California, Davis. She is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University with a BA in English and a minor in Chicana/o Studies. As an Angeleno living in Davis, she can frequently be found avoiding both freeways and bikes.

Kurt Wooden

Kurt Wooden is pursuing a MA in Creative Writing (Poetry) at UC Davis and has no idea what to do after he attains it. For now he lives and writes in Davis, CA.

Art Middleton

Art Middleton is pursuing an MA in creative writing at UC Davis and enjoys his cat and sandwiches. He is 1/3 of Fig and Axle.

PRIZED WRITING Reading

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 14:10:35 -0500

Join us Tuesday, January 29th at 4pm in Voorhies 126 for a reading by UC Davis student authors!

Jennifer Rotondo will read from and discuss her essay, Brazilian Beauty, and Julia-Rose Padilla Gonzales will also read from and discuss hers, titled Conventions of the English Language in the Twitterverse. Both of these pieces were recently published in Prized Writing, which is produced every year by the UC Davis University Writing Program. Each year, over 400 students submit essays for consideration for publication in this highly acclaimed journal, and a panel of the Writing Program’s experts selects about 20 essays for publication and cash honorariums. Come by on January 29th at 4:00 p.m. to enjoy the readings and author discussions, and learn how you might one day showcase your work in Prized Writing!

Graduate Student Reading Series JAN. 16th VENUE UPDATE

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 17:24:00 -0500

With apologies for the stressful image, fig+axle is thrilled to the bones to announce our first graduate student reading of 2013. Featuring the frequently incredible and always amazing Paola Capó-García, Eleanor Liu, and Joseph Hill. Come to Voorhies 126 at 8pm on January 16th and get some culture in your ears.

A bit more about our readers:

Paola Capó-García

Paola Capó-García is a poet and translator from San Juan, PR. A graduate of the SI Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, Paola formerly worked in print/online magazines. As a journalist, her work has appeared in BOMB, Elle, Variety, InStyle, Remezcla, among others. She is currently finishing up her MA in Poetry at UC Davis, where she also teaches undergraduate poetry courses.

Eleanor Liu

Eleanor Liu is a graduate student in fiction at UC Davis. She likes new cities: since 2007 she has lived in New Haven, CT; Oxford, UK; Ambleside, UK; Troy, NY; Savannah, GA; Chania, Greece; and Berkeley, CA. She taught theater, creative writing and English in several of these places. Among other things, her writing thinks about places and systems, and the strange places and systems schools are. Ideally her work would be a building or an experimental dance. She is working on a novel, and on very slowly translating the poetry of Yannis Kondos.

Joseph Hill

joseph hill is a part-time bike mechanic and a part-time homebrewer. He is only a writer when there are no more bikes to fix and no more beers to brew.

Adriana Craciun on January 16th

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 17:43:13 -0500

I’m excited to announce a talk by Adriana Craciun who received her Ph.D. in English at UCD and is now Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside, and the Multicampus Director of the Research Group on The Material Cultures of Knowledge. Her talk “The Seeds of Disaster: Relics of La Pérouse” is on the history of recovering relics from the eighteenth-century French explorer La Pérouse’s shipwreck in the Pacific. Craciun will address the role of the relics as scientific specimens, disaster relics, and tourist souvenirs. The talk will take place on Wednesday, January 16, from 4 – 6 p.m. in 912 Sproul Hall. Sponsors of the event are the Eighteenth-Century Studies Research Cluster, the Environmental Humanities Cluster, and the French Department.

Art Auction Against Political Repression Dec.11th

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 21:43:05 -0500

Join us on December 11th for a night that’s been a long time coming that will feature art from a wide variety of contributors. A note from the Davis Antirepression Crew:

Please join us for an Art Auction Benefit to fight political repression on campus.

The Davis Antirepression Crew is fundraising to support legal expenses for students experiencing political repression on campus. For more information or to make a donation, please visit https://davisantirepressioncrew.org/ For news and updates you can “like” us on facebook or follow us on twitter.

The auction will take place on Tuesday, Dec 11th from 6-9 pm at the TCS Building (Art Annex) at UC Davis. You can also view and bid on online at davisantirepressioncrew.org/auction. Artwork has been donated by local and national artists including Malaquias Montoya, Emory Douglas, Carlos Jackson, Tom Bills and Jos Sances, as well as UC Davis students and community members. Proceeds will be used to support Tomas Matzat, a UC Davis student being charged more than five thousand dollars in restitution after being forced into a plea deal for graffiti art; by remarkable coincidence, Tomas was pepper sprayed and violently arrested on November 18th, 2011.

For more info about Tomas and his situation please visit davisantirepressioncrew.org

There is also a wepay account for donations for Tomas’ restitution here.

Please help by making a donation and/or spreading the word today!

In solidarity –

Davis Antirepression Crew

https://davisantirepressioncrew.org/

http://www.facebook.com/DavisAntirepression

https://twitter.com/DavisARcrew

Laura Mullen and Catherine Walsh

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 17:06:31 -0500

Join us for a night of poems with experimental poets Laura Mullen and Catherine Walsh at Voorhies 126 on Wednesday, November 28th from 7-10pm. It’s guaranteed to be some of the most stimulating poetry you’ll hear/read all quarter so come out on the 28th and lend an ear or two!

Laura Mullen is the author of seven books: Enduring Freedom: A Little Book of Mechanical Brides, just out from Otis Books / Seismicity Editions, and The Surface, After I Was Dead, Subject, and Dark Archive (University of California Press, 2011), The Tales of Horror, and Murmur. Recognitions for her poetry include Ironwood’s Stanford Prize, two Board of Regents ATLAS grants, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Rona Jaffe Award. Undersong, the composer Jason Eckardt’s setting of “The Distance (This)” (from Subject) was released on Mode records in 2011. Mullen is the McElveen Professor in English at Louisiana State University.

Irish poet Catherine Walsh is noted for her long poems in experimental forms, including Optic Verve (Shearsman 2009), City West (2000; Shearsman 2005), Pitch (Pig Press, 1994) and Idir Eatortha (Invisible Books, 1996). Her most recent book is Astonished Birds: Cara, Jane Bob and James from hardPressed Poetry, 2012. Catherine Walsh was born in Dublin, growing up between that city and rural Wexford. She now lives near Limerick, Ireland. She is currently Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at UC Berkeley.

Conversations with Writers: Adair Lara

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 18:05:21 -0500

On November 15, from 5 to 6:30 pm, Adair Lara will talk with her audience about her book Naked, Drunk and Writing (Ten Speed Press, 2012) at the UWP Conversations with Writers series in 126 Voorhies. Lara is the author of several Chronicle Press books, including The Granny Diaries (2008), The Bigger the Sign, the Worse the Garage Sale (2007), andNormal is Just a Setting on the Dryer (2003). She wrote her column for the SF Chronicle from 1989 to 2001, winning awards from the Associated Press and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.
Please join us!

Graduate Readins Series CHANGE OF VENUE

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 17:58:22 -0500

Due to concerns about the weather, tonight’s event will now be held at Voorhies 126.

So for a complete recap: Come to Voorhies 126 at 7:30pm tonight to hear the poetry of Emma Estrella and Eric Sneathen, and the prose of Ben Hinshaw!

Poetry Night Against Political Repression

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 13:53:40 -0500

Poetry Night Against Political Repression

Please join us for a benefit art auction and poetry reading featuring internationally renowned poets Joe Wenderoth, Juliana Spahr, and Joshua Clover. This event, a special edition of Poetry Night, supports a UC Davis student being charged more than five thousand dollars in restitution after being forced into a plea deal for graffiti art; by remarkable coincidence, it is one of the students violently arrested on November 18th, 2011. Art is being donated by local and national artists including renowned Chicano Art Movement figure Malaquias Montoya — in addition to the student himself. The three readers, authors of more than 20 books of poetry, fiction, and essays, have never read before as a group. Please join us for this very special event, and support a tradition of socially engaged artistic practice.

Admission is free. Donations will be accepted for drinks, or any other reason. While the art auction will take place online, certain works will be available for viewing and/or purchase only at the gallery. We look forward to seeing you at this vital and historical occasion.

8:00, November 15th, at John Natsoulas Gallery, corner of First and E Streets, Davis, CA.

First Graduate Student Reading NOV. 8th

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 02:21:03 -0400

Come one, come all to fig+axle Graduate Student Reading Series 2012-2013 inaugural event featuring a trio of wonderful readers. On November 8th, 8pm at 239 3rd St. next to Sam’s Mediterranean, come hear Ben Hinshaw, Emma Estrella, and Eric Sneathen read their prose and poetry.

A bit more about the readers:

Ben Hinshaw

Ben Hinshaw is a writer and occasional musician, born on the island of Guernsey in 1981. He earned an MA in cultural geography at The University of Nottingham before working for several years at Daunt Books in London. He is currently a graduate student and teaching assistant in the English department at The University of California, Davis.

Emma Estrella

Emma Estrella is a native of California, born and raised in Salinas, John Steinbeck’s hometown. She is a graduate of Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, hometown of Carson McCullers. She presently resides in Sacramento, where she lives around the corner from Joan Didion’s childhood home, completely by accident. Emma is currently pursuing a Masters in Creative Writing at UC Davis with an emphasis in poetry. Her work has appeared in the Susquehanna Review, the Arden, and on her parents’ refrigerator since she was 6.

Eric Sneathen

Eric Sneathen is a second year poet entering his seventh year in Davis. As an undergraduate he attempted several majors, a path that included classes dubiously titled “A Cultural Survey of Europe” and “The History of Life,” before reluctantly settling upon English. Between degrees, Eric served with the United State Peace Corps in the kingdom of Morocco, where he worked, played, and sang with kids and adults for over two years.

Sandra Gilbert at the John Natsoulas Gallery

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 00:40:31 -0400

Come one, come all to a night of poetry, puns, and perennial pleasure with the poet Sandra Gilbert! Where? The John Natsoulas Gallery (521 First st.). When? November the 1st. Who? Sandra Gilbert!

Sandra M. Gilbert, Distinguished Professor of of English Emerita at the University of California, Davis, is the author of eight collections of poetry: In the Fourth World (Alabama), The Summer Kitchen (the Heyeck Press), Emily’s Bread, Blood Pressure, Ghost Volcano and Kissing the Bread: New and Selected Poems 1969-1999 (the last four all from W. W. Norton), The Italian Collection(Depot Books), and Belongings (Norton). Her most recent volume of poems,Aftermath, was also published by Norton, in 2011.

fig+axle Graduate Student Reading Series

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 18:05:00 -0400

fig+axle is pleased to announce the schedule of events for the 2012-13 Graduate Student Reading Series! The list that follows is spilling over with talent, and we at fig+axle cannot wait to get started. Come out for each reading and support your local writers!

Tentatively:

NOVEMBER 8

eric sneathen

emma estrella

ben hinshaw

JANUARY 10

eleanor liu

joseph hill

paola capó-garcía

FEBRUARY 14

art middleton

christina magana

kurt wooden

ryan mattern

MARCH 14

will mcclure

brook barman

cj morello

APRIL 11

susana ponce

ishelle payer

brandon norris

Erick Lyle

Sun, 21 Oct 2012 12:06:00 -0400

Come out this Wednesday, October 24th at 7pm to Voorhies 126, for a talk by writer/activist/artist/curator Erick Lyle. See the description below for the details.

In recent years, city planners across the country have fallen in love with art. From big cities like Miami and San Francisco to small towns like Braddock, PA, it has become conventional wisdom that art and artists are the key to bringing vitality back to moribund inner city neighborhoods. Yet, can art really turn cities around? If so, how? In late 2009, reporter, activist, and independent art curator, Erick Lyle, traveled to his hometown, Miami, to cover the glitzy annual art extravaganza, Miami Beach Art Basel and found a city transformed by art, but seemingly for the worse, as art world-led development had seemingly displaced poor communities instead of actually revitalizing them. In 2012, Lyle curated with artist, Chris Johanson, his response to Art Basel, the large-scale art exhibition, Streetopia in which he and some 150 artists, writers, activists, joined local residents in San Francisco to discuss true ways that art could play a positive role in communities.
Join Lyle in a discussion about his recent work on WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24th at 7pm at VOORHIES 126.

Erick Lyle is a writer, musician, activist, and cultural instigator. The editor since 1991 of the influential underground punk zine, SCAM, Lyle is also the author of On The Lower Frequencies: A Secret History of the City (Soft Skull 2008). He is a frequent contributor toSan Francisco Bay Guardian and his work has appeared in Brooklyn Rail, LA Weekly,Raritan, and on NPR’s This American Life. He has played on some 25 records and traveled the country in 10 bands since 1999, currently playing in Black Rainbow and Knife in the Eye. In 2012, Lyle curated with artist, Chris Johanson, the exhibition, Streetopia, at the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco. His next book, The Cement Project, appears next year on Soft Skull Press.

A.D. Winans at the Davis Jazz Beat Festival

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 22:32:08 -0400

You’re in luck! A.D. Winans will be reading at The John Natsoulas Gallery at 521 First Street onOctober 19th at 7:30pm! Come out for a night of poems and good feelings.

Here’s more about the man himself and the excellent Davis Jazz Beat Festival:

A native of San Francisco, Allan Davis Winans is a poet, essayist, photographer, and short story writer whose work has appeared in over 2,000 literary magazines and anthologies, including City Lights Journal, Poetry Australia, The New York Quarterly, Beatitude, Beat Scene, and Rattle. In addition, he has written 50 books of poetry and two books of prose. Winans was close friends with Beat poets Charles Bukowski, Bob Kaufman, and Jack Micheline, having participated in the Beat and post-Beat era starting in 1958. From 1972 to 1989 Winans edited and published Second Coming Magazine, which produced a large number of books and anthologies, including the highly acclaimed California Bicentennial Poets Anthology. In 2006, he was awarded a PEN National Josephine Miles Award For Excellence in Literature, and, in 2009, PEN Oakland presented Winans with a Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2010, Bottle of Smoke Press published a 300-page collection of Winans’ selected poems, and in February 2012 Little Red Tree Press published Winans’ San Francisco Poems. To find out more about A. D. Winans, visit http://www.adwinans.mysite.com/.

The 6^th Annual Davis Jazz Festival: Beyond the Beat Generation takes place this coming weekend, Friday & Saturday, October 19 & 20, 2012, at the John Natsoulas Gallery and at Davis Commons (in front of the new Whole Foods Market). For six years the Davis Jazz Festival has been the premier collaborative conference in the region, offering an eclectic mix of poets, singers, bands and performance painters for people of all ages to enjoy. Featuring music from classical jazz combos to hard-driving big bands, the festival will serve as an educational event for creative youth, and will benefit the Davis High School Band Program. For more information, visit http://www.natsoulas.com/schedule/.

Mary Favret Talk

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 13:39:25 -0400

We are pleased to announce that this Friday, October 12th, Mary Favret will speak on “Suicide and the Soldier” in Voorhies 126 at 4pm.

Buy her book at http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9033.html or at your local bookstore.

Here’s more about the author and her book:

What does it mean to live during wartime away from the battle zone? What is it like for citizens to go about daily routines while their country sends soldiers to kill and be killed across the globe? Timely and thought-provoking, War at a Distance considers how those left on the home front register wars and wartime in their everyday lives, particularly when military conflict remains removed from immediate perception, available only through media forms. Looking back over two centuries, Mary Favret locates the origins of modern wartime in the Napoleonic era and describes how global military operations affected the British populace, as the nation’s army and navy waged battles far from home for decades. She reveals that the literature and art produced in Britain during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries obsessively cultivated means for feeling as much as understanding such wars, and established forms still relevant today.

Favret examines wartime literature and art as varied as meditations on the Iliad, the history of meteorology, landscape painting in India, and popular poetry in newspapers and periodicals; she locates the embedded sense of war and dislocation in works ranging from Austen, Coleridge, and Wordsworth to Woolf, Stevens, and Sebald; and she contemplates how literature provides the public with methods for responding to violent calamities happening elsewhere. Bringing to light Romanticism’s legacy in reflections on modern warfare, this book shows that war’s absent presence affects home in deep and irrevocable ways.

Mary A. Favret is associate professor of English at Indiana University. She is the author of Romantic Correspondence: Women, Politics and the Fiction of Letters.