The Poetry & Poetics Reading Group meets two Tuesdays a month from 7:30-9:00pm in the Graduate Lounge of Fisher-Bennett Hall (Room 330), and on an ad hoc basis at the Kelly Writers House. This flexible, conversation-based discussion group focuses especially on twentieth-century poetry and contemporary critical work in English. We are open to the public and encourage interdisciplinary conversation between poetry and poetics, the sciences and the arts. Our group is grounded in the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania, but extends into a larger community of poets, critics, and scholars engaged with contemporary poetics in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Focusing on the intersection of scholarship and poetic practice, this group is currently experimenting with a new format of presentation. Invited speakers will first read a poem — often their own — which will be followed by a critical work on a correspondent issue, presented in dialog with the poem opening the meeting. The aim is for a conversation to emerge among readings of poetry, critical work, and an open network of outside concerns. Bringing practice face-to-face with theory and criticism, this group is conversation and event based. No advance readings are necessary; meetings will emphasize the live experience of the work in a shared space. |  Organizer, Fall 2012 – Spring 2014 |