Rain Taxi Reading Series
Rain Taxi sponsors a reading series as a further demonstration of its commitment to literary culture. All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.
FORTHCOMING 2010 EVENTS
Steve Healey and Gillian Conoley
September 10, 2010, 7:00pm
The Soap Factory
514 North Second Street SE, Minneapolis
Join us for the first Rain Taxi reading of the season, in which we launch local poet Steve Healey’s 10 Mississippi into the world! We’ll be holding this event a stone’s throw away from the river of the title at the dazzling Soap Factory, and a reception will follow. Healey will be joined at this special event by acclaimed Bay Area poet Gillian Conoley, reading from her arresting new book, The Plot Genie. All this, plus the release of the 59th issue of Rain Taxi Review of Books! It’s going to be a night to celebrate words—we hope to see you there!
photo by Dallas Knight
Steve Healey is the author of a previous book of poetry, Earthling, which introduced a voice of comic absurdity and meditative grace. His new book, 10 Mississippi (Coffee House Press), evolves the play of language as it grapples with the complexities of modern life. You’ll hear why Billy Collins says “Steve Healey has figured out a way to get a new sound out of the saxophone of English,” and why Dean Young advises “Reader, prepare for your training wheels to fall off.”
“Steve Healey blends the sharp and the sad in such a moving way in this stunning second book, but it’s at the level of the phrase, and behind that, at the level of the idea, that something really extraordinary is going on.” —Cole Swensen
Healey’s essays and criticism have appeared in the Writer’s Chronicle and Rain Taxi Review of Books, and his poems have appeared in the anthology Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century and in journals from American Poetry Review to Verse. He lives in Minneapolis and has recently taught at Michigan State University, Macalester College, and the University of Minnesota.
Gillian Conoley is the author of seven collections of poetry, including Profane Halo, Lovers in the Used World, and Tall Stranger, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her latest work, The Plot Genie (Omnidawn Publishing), is inspired by a 1930s plot-generating device used widely by Hollywood writers until the 1950s to divine character traits and plot points. A murky underworld peopled by hapless figures waiting to be “dialed up” and sent along multiple and fragmentary narratives, Conoley's The Plot Genie is one of the most dizzyingly inventive books to hit the poetry scene in recent years.
“Gillian Conoley's exhilarating new book, The Plot Genie, is a multi-storied, imaginary archaeology of contingency, eventfulness, and truth. She has created a complex confabulation, a comedy of realities—realities circulated by chance.” —Lyn Hejinian
Conoley’s poetry has received many prizes, including the American Poetry Review’s Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Fund for Poetry Award. Editor and founder of the literary journal Volt, she teaches at Sonoma State University and is currently translating Henri Michaux’s Four Hundred Men on the Cross.
Twin Cities Book Festival
October 16, 2010, 10:00am - 5:00pm
Mark your calendars and don't miss the 10th annual celebration of books!
Click here for more information.
An Evening with Eileen Myles
November 7, 2010, 7:00pm
Target Performance Hall at Open Book
1011 Washington Ave. South, Minneapolis
Co-sponsored by Rain Taxi Review of Books and the Loft Literary Center
Reception to follow—stay tuned for more info!
FREE VERSE: John Yau
November 11, 2010, 7:00pm
Walker Art Center
1750 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis
The renowned poet and art critic presents a special program to celebrate the Yves Klein exhibit. Stay tuned for more info!
The Rain Taxi Reading Series is sponsored in part by a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.
Click Here to see a complete list of previous events
in the Rain Taxi Reading Series