Poems for the Millennium III Reading

On December 29 at 7:00 p.m. Books Inc. – Opera Plaza
will be hosting a launch and reading for

Poems for the Millennium, volume 3: The University of California Book of Romantic and Postromantic Poetry,

edited by
Jerome Rothenberg and Jeffrey C. Robinson.

Like its two twentieth-century predecessors, Poems for the Millennium, volumes 1 and 2, this gathering sets forth a globally decentered approach to the poetry of the preceding century from a radically experimental and visionary perspective. Joining Rothenberg and Robinson in the reading and performance are major Bay Area poets Michael McClure, Diane di Prima, Michael Palmer, Bill Berkson, Leslie Scalapino, and Jack Foley (performing with Adelle Foley). Introducing the reading will be Katherine Hastings, founder of the WordTemple Poetry Series and host of WordTemple on KRCB 91.1 FM, Santa Rosa’s NPR affiliate. The Books Inc. location is at Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness Avenue, tel. 415.776.1111.

The following is from the University of California Press announcement:

The previous two volumes of this acclaimed anthology set forth a globally decentered revision of twentieth-century poetry from the perspective of its many avant-gardes. Now editors Jerome Rothenberg and Jeffrey C. Robinson bring a radically new interpretation to the poetry of the preceding century, viewing the work of the romantic and post-romantic poets as an international, collective, often utopian enterprise that became the foundation of experimental modernism. Global in its range, volume three gathers selections from the poetry and manifestos of canonical poets, as well as the work of lesser-known but equally radical poets. Defining romanticism as experimental and visionary, Rothenberg and Robinson feature prose poetry, verbal-visual experiments, and sound poetry, along with more familiar forms seen here as if for the first time. The anthology also explores romanticism outside the European orbit and includes ethnopoetic and archaeological works outside the literary mainstream. The range of volume three and its skewing of the traditional canon illuminate the process by which romantics and post- romantics challenged nineteenth-century orthodoxies and propelled poetry to the experiments of a later modernism and avant-gardism.

The full University of California Press announcement can be found here, including a complete copy of the book’s table of contents.