EYE ON PITTSBURGH: “Along These Rivers” launch party this weekend; poet Ellen Bass reading in February
Clipart.com photo of Pittsburgh
LAUNCH PARTY: “Along These Rivers,” a book that gathers work by photographers and poets to mark Pittsburgh’s 250th anniversary, will be launched at a reception at the Silver Eye Center for Photography, 1015 E. Carson St., South Side, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19. Refreshments and readings.
The book is edited by Pittsburgh writers Judith Robinson and Michael Wurster, of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange.
Cover painting by city artist Philip Pearlstine.
For information, call (412) 481-7636.
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POETRY READING: Ellen Bass — Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series — 8:30 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 6. Free. Frick Fine Arts Auditorium. University of Pittsburgh.
Click here for Ellen Bass bio, and here for sample poems, and here for a two-part blip.tv (beta) interview with her.
In 1973, Bass co-edited with Florence Howe “No More Masks!: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Women Poets,” the first major anthology of women’s poetry.
“The Human Line,” her fourth book of poems, was published by Copper Canyon Press last summer. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review and many other publications. She has won many awards including the Larry Levis Prize and a Pushcart Prize.
When Poets and Writers Magazine asked Bass last summer about sources of her poetry, the process of her poetry, she said in part:
“Very often a poem comes from something that I’m trying to work out in my own life. Often I’ll write the same poem many times if there’s an idea I’m grappling with. I’ll write it over and over in poems that don’t ultimately succeed until finally I have some entry into the poem.”
Click the video to watch a clip of Bass reading “The Big Picture,” a poem from her book “The Human Line.”
