Media Contact: Kate Callen at (619) 534-0361 or kcallen@ucsd.edu

"Page Mothers: The Poets, Their Presses, Their Poetics" will explore the relationship between the dynamic poetics of several women poets and writers involved in late 20^th-century publishing on March 5-6 at the Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego.

The two-day conference is free and open to the public. Five separate panel discussions will take place Friday evening and Saturday in the library’s Seuss Room. A separate poetry reading by Bernadette Mayer and Maureen Owen will take place Saturday 8 p.m. in the UCSD Faculty Club.

"This conference will focus on women poets and writers who were active in publishing in the last quarter of this century," said Fanny Howe, Professor of Literature and one of the conference’s organizers. "Given the social context of their work – assassinations, the civil rights movement, feminism – we will try to understand how those events effected their thinking and the production of that thinking, how making books and magazines was part of the intellectual process that transformed poetics generally."

One of the panels will examine the work of Mayer, a poet who edited with Lewis Welsh the mimeo magazine United Artists. "Mayer has had a radical influence on poetics," said Howe. "Her archives have been bought by UCSD and are in the process of being catalogued. This

conference will help celebrate her papers coming here."

The conference will conclude with younger new poets from California who will talk about the "page mothers" and their influence on their work and its production. Throughout the conference, the presses will be on display at the library.

The conference schedule and participants are:

Friday, March 5, Seuss Room, Geisel Library:

4:00 –5:00 Reception & Welcome by Rae Armantrout

5:45 – 7:15 A Little History (1960-1980)

Michael Davidson (UC San Diego)

Harryette Mullen (UC Los Angeles)

Kathleen Fraser (However)

Patricia Dienstfrey (Kelsey Street Press)

Simone Fattal (Post Apollo Press)

Saturday, March 6, Seuss Room, Geisel Library

8:30 – 10:00 Poetics and Such

Myung Mi Mim (However)

Brenda Hillman (St. Mary’s College)

Martha Ronk (Littoral Books)

Lyn Hejinian (Tuumba and Atelos)

10:30 – 12:00 How to Survive the Canon

Mary Margaret Sloan (Moving Borders)

Maureen Owen (Telephone Books)

Cristanne Miller (Pomona College) & Lynn Keller (U. of Wisconsin)

Carla Harryman (Q2)

Aldon Nielsen (Loyola Marymount University)

1:00 – 2:30 Mrs. Poetry: The Work of Bernadette Mayer

Stephen Cope (UC San Diego)

Leslie Scalapino (O Books)

Lee Ann Brown (Tender Buttons)

Juliana Spahr (Chain)

3:00 – 4:30 Guess What’s Next?

Marjorie Perloff (Stanford University)

Dodie Bellamy (Mirage)

Laura Moriarity (non)

Renee Gladman (Clamour)

Pamela Lu (Idiom)

8:00 – 9:00 Poetry Reading by Bernadette Mayer & Maureen Owen, UCSD Faculty Club

"Page Mothers" is sponsored by the Department of Literature, The Chancellor’s Associates, the Center for the Humanities, Mandeville Special Collections Library, and Friends of the UCSD Libraries. For further information, contact Lucinda Rubio by phone at (619) 534-3216 or by e-mail at lrubio@ucsd.edu.