Media Contact: Jan Jennings, (619) 822-1684, jnjennings@ucsd.edu

Contemporary writers and poets of national and international acclaim will read from their works beginning April 7 and continuing through May 26 as part of the New Writing Series: Spring 1999 at the University of California, San Diego.  The readings will be at 4:30 p.m. in the Visual Arts Facility Performance Space unless otherwise noted.  All events are free and open to the public.

A special lecture and reading by Charles Bernstein will be presented at 4:30 p.m. May 12 in the Seuss Room of Geisel Library.  Bernstein is the 1999 recipient of the Roy Harvey Pearce/Archive for New Poetry Prize awarded biennially to an American poet/scholar.  He is the author of more than two dozen books of poetry and criticism.  A recent publication is My Way: Speeches and Poems (University of Chicago Press, 1999).

There also will be a special memorial reading May 26 to celebrate the life and work of internationally known poet and performance artist Armand Schwerner.  It will include a filmed performance of Schwerner’s reading from his masterwork, The Tablets, and guest appearances by poet/artists David Antin, Eleanor Antin, Jerome Rothenberg, Quincy Troupe and Mark Weiss.

Beginning the writing series’ readings on April 7 will be Mervyn Taylor, author of two books of poems, An Island of His Own and The Goat.  Taylor divides his time between his native Trinidad and New York where he teaches high school English in Harlem and creative writing at the New School for Social Research.

Leslie Scalapino, author of numerous books of poetry, prose, drama and criticism, will read April 14.   Scalapino’s recent publications include Green and Black: Selected Writings and Sight, a collaboration with Lyn Hejinian.

Aldon Nielsen will read April 21.  Nielsen is the author of four volumes of poetry, including the most recent, Vext, and four books of literary/cultural criticism, including C.L.R. James: A Critical Introduction and Black Chant: Languages of African-American Postmodernism.

On April 28, long-time UCSD professor and internationally celebrated poet and critic Michael Davidson will read.   Among Davidson’s most recent publications are The Arcades and Ghostlier Demarcations: Modern Poetry and the Material Word.

San Francisco Bay Area author Kit Robinson will read May 5.  He is the author of numerous poetry books including the recently published Democracy Boulevard.

Winding up the series May 19, prior to the May 26 Schwerner memorial celebration, will be Lewis Warsh. Editor and publisher of United Artists Books, Warsh is the author of two novels, A Free Man and Agnes & Sally; a book of stories, Money Under the Table, and numerous books of poems, including Information from the Surface of Venus and Avenue of Escape.

The UCSD New Writing Series: Spring 1999 is sponsored by University Events, the Division of Arts and Humanities, the Archive for New Poetry and the Department of Literature.