Full Program: Hank Lazer and Andrew Maxwell: February 23, 2017
Highlight video clips: Andrew Maxwell | Hank Lazer
Poets Hank Lazer and Andrew Maxwell present their work, then engage in conversation with one another and the audience.
Hank Lazer has published twenty-four books of poetry, including Poems Hidden in Plain View (2016, in English and in French), Brush Mind: At Hand (2016), N24 (2014) and N18 (2012), Portions (2009), The New Spirit (2005), Elegies & Vacations (2004), and Days (2002). Selected Poems and Essays of Hank Lazer, completed by a group of translators, was published by Central China Normal University Press in 2015. Lazer’s Selected Poems have also been published in Italy and will be appearing shortly in Cuba (including 11 tracks for jazz-poetry improvisations with soprano saxophonist Andrew Raffo Dewar). Readings and interviews can be accessed through PennSound, as well as in special issues of Plume #34 and Talisman #42. In 2015, Lazer was selected to receive Alabama’s most prestigious literary prize, the Harper Lee Award, for lifetime achievement in literature. His books of criticism include Opposing Poetries (two volumes, 1996) and Lyric & Spirit: Selected Essays 1996-2008 (2008). With Charles Bernstein, he edits the Modern and Contemporary Poetics Series for the University of Alabama Press. Lazer retired from the University of Alabama in January 2014 from his positions as Associate Provost for Academic Affairs, Executive Director of Creative Campus, and Professor of English.
Andrew Maxwell's recent collections include Candor is the Brightest Shield (Ugly Duckling, 2015), Peeping Mot (Apogee, 2013) and the ongoing Beggars of Life, a collaboration with artist Nathan Gelgud. Increasingly interested in short-form literature, much of Maxwell's current work is epigrammatic in nature. A selection of his aphorisms is currently on display as an LED scroll in the installation THIS KNOWN WORLD at MOCA Los Angeles, and Conversion Table, a collection of small remarks without propositional attitudes, was issued in September on Mindmade Books. He runs the Poetic Research Bureau with Joseph Mosconi in Los Angeles, where he also hosts a weekly radio show of international roots music on KXLU 88.9FM, "The Dream of Harry Lime."