WRITER Elizabeth Willis
WRITER Peter Gizzi
DATE 20 January 2005, 4:30pm
PLACE Donald P. Corbett building, University of Maine, Orono
EVENT DESCRIPTION
The first event of the spring 2005 New Writing Series took place on 20 January 2005 and featured the poets Elizabeth Willis and Peter Gizzi. A snow storm forced the cancellation of classes earlier in the day, but the university resumed operations at 4:30pm, the event's scheduled start time. Despite seven inches of new snow, approximately sixty people attended the event. Willis alludes in her opening remarks to the inauguration of President George Bush to a second term in office that day.
OVERVIEW OF SET
Willis reads from a published volume, Turneresque, the manuscript of a forthcoming volume, Meteoric Flowers, and three other poems. Gizzi reads from a published volume, Some Values of Landscape and Weather, and from "A Panic That Can Still Come Upon Me," a five-part poem in manuscript.
RELATED TITLES
Gizzi, Peter. A Panic That Can Still Come Upon Me. Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling, 2006.
---. Some Values of Landscape and Weather. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 2003.
Elizabeth Willis. Meteoric Flowers. Middletown: Wesleyan, 2006.
---. Turneresque. Providence: Burning Deck, 2003.
ARCHIVAL RECORD
The event was recorded on digital video tape using a Sony DCR-TRV19 camera with built-in microphone. Image is acceptable throughout, little movement or refocusing, mostly middle-to-close shots showing part of wooden lectern, the poet from lower-chest up, with a whiteboard in the background. Poets are clearly audible throughout, though room and camera noises can also be heard.
OTHER EVENT RELATED MATERIALS
NWS Poet Profile: Elizabeth Willis. Produced by Steve Evans in collaboration with Jim Sharkey Documentaries, January 2005.
NWS Poet Profile: Peter Gizzi. Produced by Steve Evans in collaboration with Jim Sharkey Documentaries, January 2005.
ELIZABETH WILLIS SET LIST - DV Tape 1 of 2
00 00 [remarks on inauguration day
00 44 Dear Elizabeth
04 01 [transition remarks
04 20 Encyclopedia of March
05 20 Still Life with Tornado
xx xx TURNESQUE
06 00 [remarks on Turneresque
06 47 Autographeme
08 48 [remarks on "Modern Painters" section
08 57 The Tree of Personal Effort
09 50 Three Apples, Two Chesnuts
11 09 [remarks on "Sonnet" section
11 30 To Live in Someone Else's Music
11 59 Unable to hire one's self for labor
xx xx The teacher's love of someone's children
12 42 As proud and difficult as Greek
13 01 Our Daphne dissipates
13 25 A fateful history beginning to clang
13 53 Forgetting the tumbled sheen of home
14 12 Grammar is corral
14 26 I find you
xx xx Without an arch
15 14 [sip of water
15 20 [remarks on "Turneresque" section
15 53 A Woman's Face
17 06 Clash by Night
18 07 On Dangerous Ground
19 15 Kiss Me Deadly
19 50 [remark on Christina Rossetti
xx xx METEORIC FLOWERS
20 01 [remarks on Meteoric Flowers
xx xx [remarks on Erasmus Darwin
xx xx [remarks on science and lyricism
21 18 On the resemblance of some flowers to insects
22 25 Sympathetic inks
23 20 Grateful of asparagus
24 15 The description of the poison tree
25 15 Pictures connected by a slight festoon
26 03 The happiest of poets
26 55 The similtude of this great flower
28 00 Ferns, mosses, flags
29 45 [applause
PETER GIZZI SET LIST - DV Tape 1 of 2
29 52 [opening remarks
30 30 [on "A Panic That Can Still Come Upon Me"
xx xx [remarks on Jess's "salvage works"
31 15 A Panic That Can Still Come Upon Me
33 16 A Panic, part 2
34 52 A Panic, part 3
35 35 A Panic, part 4
36 50 A Panic, part 5
37 32 SOME VALUES OF LANDSCAPE AND WEATHER
xx xx [remarks on "values"
38 40 [on "Overtakelessness"
xx xx [remarks on Dickinson, Keith Waldrop
39 28 Overtakelessness
40 30 [on "Edgar Poe"
xx xx [on Poe's grave in Baltimore
41 30 Edgar Poe
42 08 Lessons in Darkness (title approximate)
43 44 Take the 5:10 to Dreamland
45 01 [on the Lockheed Galaxy war plane
45 28 [on "Revival," composed February 2001
xx xx [on Gregory Corso
xx xx [about William Wyler's Best Years of Our Lives
46 20 Revival
52 50 [sip of water
53 58 In Defense of Nothing
53 45 [time check
53 55 [ on "It Was Raining in Delft"
54 20 It Was Raining in Delft
55 40 Chateau If
56 55 [on Marseilles, sixties soul music
57 35 Something in Blue
58 55 Plain Song
61 00 [applause
61 20 [announcement by Steve Evans about Q&A