Library Symposium at Poets House

An afternoon spent in silence? A-Z? The cosmic order of Borges’ library of the imagination? Whatever the duration, extent, or dimensions of your perfect library, this day-long symposium will delight and inform as it winds through the many roles libraries take on in the community of readers and in the imagination, as collection, as shared intellectual and physical space, and as the symbol of shared knowledge.

• 12:00pm: Collections, Curators, and Community: A Conversation with Nancy Kuhl, Shannon Mattern & Kevin Young
Exploring our institutions as real spaces in a digital world and metaphors for knowledge.

• 1:30pm: Poets at Poets House: Catherine Barnett, Tyehimba Jess, and Monica Youn.
Three contemporary poets share new poems created in-residency in Poets House’s Reed Foundation Library of poetry books, journals, artworks and ephemera.

• 3:00pm: Ander Monson on Ephemera and Kevin Young on Collections
Ander Monson, author of Letter to a Future Lover: Marginalia, Errata, Secrets, Inscriptions, and Other Ephemera Found in Libraries, demonstrates the permeability of collections; poet and curator of The Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University Kevin Young speaks to their stability.

• 4:30pm: Susan Howe in Conversation with Nancy Kuhl
Bollingen Prize-winning poet Susan Howe, author of My Emily Dickinson which re-imagined the work of one of America’s greatest poets, modernizing Dickinson and her archives for an entire generation, discusses the many libraries that have gone into her artistic practice with curator and poet Nancy Kuhl.

• 6:00pm: Reception
A chance to meet the day’s presenters

Click here for Ander Monson’s Sunday, November 8th one-day workshop Library as Material

Catherine Barnett is the author of two collections of poetry, most recently The Game of Boxes (2012).

Susan Howe is a poet, scholar, essayist and critic. Her most recent work is Spontaneous Particulars: The Telepathy of the Archives.

Tyehimba Jess‘s debut collection, Ledbelly (2005), was chosen for the National Poetry Series.

Nancy Kuhl is curator of poetry for the Yale Collection of American Literature at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and the author of four poetry collections.

Shannon Mattern is an Associate Professor in the School of Media Studies at the New School. Her most recent book is Deep Mapping the Media City (2015).

Ander Monson is a novelist, poet, and editor. His most recent book is Letter to a Future Lover: Marginalia, Errata, Secrets, Inscriptions, and Other Ephemera Found in Libraries (2015)

Monica Youn is the author of Barter (2003) and Ignatz (2010), a finalist for the National Book Award.

Kevin Young is the author of eight books of poetry and curator of Literary Collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.