Athens, Ga. — Poet Michael Palmer will read from his work Feb. 16 at7 p.m. at Ciné Bar-Café-Cinema, 235 West Hancock Ave. in Athens.The event, sponsored by the University of Georgia creative writing program, English department, Verse and Lanier Speakers Series, is free and open to the public.
Michael Palmer is the author of nine poetry books, the most recent of which, Company of Moths (New Directions, 2005), was shortlisted for the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize. His other volumes are The Promises of Glass (2000), At Passages (1996), Sun (1988), First Figure (1984), Notes for Echo Lake (1981), Without Music (1977), The Circular Gates (1974) and Blake’s Newton (1972). In addition, Palmer’s poems have been gathered into The Lion Bridge: Selected Poems 1972-1995 (1998) and Codes Appearing: Poems 1979-1988 (2001).He also is the author of the prose work The Danish Notebook (Avec Books, 1999), as well as of a volume of selected essays and talks, Active Boundaries (New Directions, 2008).
Born in New York City in 1943, Palmer participated in the 1963 Vancouver Poetry Conference, where he met Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley and Clark Coolidge, all of whom became important influences on the development of his poetics. Frequently associated with L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E writing, Palmer is lately credited as foremost among the poets responsible for productive cross-pollinationbetween experimental poetry and more traditional lyricism.
A translator of French, Russian and Portuguese, Palmer edited and contributed translations to Nothing The Sun Could Not Explain: Twenty Contemporary Brazilian Poets(Sun & Moon Press, 1997) and Blue Vitriol (Avec Books, 1994), a collection of poetry by Alexei Parshchikov. He also translated Theory of Tables (1994), which Emmanuel Hocquard wrote after having translated Palmer’s “Baudelaire Series” into French. Palmer has collaborated with other artists, including painter Gerhard Richter and the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company.
Palmer’s honors include two grants from the NEA, a Lila Wallace – Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America, and the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets.He lives in San Francisco.
For further information about the UGA creative writing program, see http://www.english.uga.edu/newsite/cwp/home.html.
