Ver Poets - Simon Bowden / News / Tue 08 Nov 2016
What Have the Americans Done for Us?
As Monty Python might have put it - What have the Americans done for us? Well – there’s Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost. Then you might mention Wallace Stevens, ee cummings, Sylvia Plath, Mark Doty, Sharon Olds.
Come along and read your favourite short poem by an American – or about America. And hear the work of two of the best up-and-coming American poets based in Britain – Robert Peake and R A Villanueva.
Robert is a west coast poet living near London. He created the Transatlantic Poetry series, bringing poets together for live online readings. His film-poems have been widely screened. His collection The Knowledge is available from Nine Arches Press.
R A Villanueva is the author of Reliquaria, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize and the Ninth Letter Literary Award. His first book was described as a mix of divination, transfiguration, haunted graveyards, traps, and blessings.
The evening will end with a discussion of how American poetry differs from the British tradition – and what it has to offer.
VENUE: St Michael’s Church Hall, St Michael’s Street, St Albans AL3 4SL
(Free parking opposite the Roman Museum)
Friday November 18 at 8 pm. Doors open 7.40.
Tickets £5 (£2 for Ver Poets members) incl refreshments at half time