Roundtable

This roundtable will explore the life and legacy of the poet Frank Stanford (1948-1978). Drawing on the unique expertise of each panelist, it will do so through several perspectives.  James McWilliams, author of the first Frank Stanford biography (due out in the summer of 2025 with the University of Arkansas Press), will survey Stanford's early upbringing in Greenville, Mississippi; Memphis, Tennessee; Snow Lake, Arkansas; Mountain Home, Arkansas; and Subiaco, Arkansas. A. P.

What is literary influence? How can we re-envision traditional models of unilateral, hierarchical modes of influence to an understanding of influence that evolves from more organic, rhizomic, dialogical means. A concept of influence that may include friendships, collaborations, and the experiences of one's material life as part of its nexus.  Four poets will discuss their understanding of poetic "influence"  and lineage through their work in the new collection Other Influences: An Untold Story of Feminist Avant-garde Poetry. 

This Bagley Wright Lecture is on being influenced (thinking of influence as a site of openness, and pleasure  - not anxiety), and sits in three parts: the first has to do with growing up with Anselm Berrigan's folks as parents and starting to write. The second part gets into Anselm being influenced by a range of other people and has a passage that is made up mostly of things people said to him across a period of childhood/teen/early 20s years, while also getting inside the one semester he spent working one-on-one with Allen Ginsberg.

How do other arts affect poetry’s shapes, forms, and textures? Since writing doesn’t occur in a vacuum, how do visual and audial media, as well as technological interactivity, change our poetic responses? This panel will bring together writers who will discuss the influence of artistic mediums outside of poetry, as well as how their engagement in other artistic practices colors how they approach language. All writers included have acted as publishers, editors, distributors, and/or book designers.

In this session, Ariel Francisco, Carlos Gerardo, and Nicolás Cabrera will explore their connection to Guatemala through poetry in a moderated conversation with Nahum Villamil. The idea of exploring distance comes from understanding that, at this moment, the three poets live in Louisiana, so we are the same physical distance from Guatemala. At the same time, the poets have other distances (time since the last visit, experiences with Guatemala, and age at their previous visit).

For this roundtable discussion, contributors to Annulet’s special spring issue folio, “American Poetry and Poetics, 2008–2025” will present talks that detail and open up their individual and collaboratively authored contributions for discussion, which will also welcome audience participation. Presentations respond to the foundational question driving the folio, which is—what is the history of American poetry and poetics in this period from the 2008 recession to the present, and why isn't there yet a clear understanding of it?

2025 marks the centennial of the birth of Kenneth Koch and this event is a part of the international celebrations scheduled for 2025. Kenneth Koch, who died in 2002, was one of the finest poets of the 20th century. With John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, James Schuyler, and Barbara Guest, this group formed the nucleus of the first generation of the New York School of Poetry. Koch’s fame came not only from his poetry, but from his innovative work as a teacher of poetry.

Poet and Elizabeth Bishop scholar Lloyd Schwartz will talk about Bishop as a translator (Paz, Drummond). “Bishop was a great translator, both accurate and profoundly poetic and skillful. Octavio Paz said that her translation of his poem "January First" was better than the original”. Paz also translated Bishop’s poetry  into Spanish – we will discuss how different these approaches were. Poet and translator Mary Jane White will talk about translatability of Marina Tsvetaeva’s work.

Through a combination of print formats historically labeled ephemera, from newsprint to letterpress broadsides, this panel will explore how print formats beyond the book can restore control of the art-making process to writers and publications, thereby enabling them to engage with the page in new and experimental ways that traditional nine-by-five book formats might obfuscate or prevent. This panel will explore movements such as Fluxus and mail art, discussing how practices like these can continue to push the boundaries of print media. The value of this panel is twofold.

Where would poetry be without delight? Without wonder? 5 Poets Laureate from Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas and Kansas will talk about the importance of joy to poetry. They will share poems that embody joy, as well as share their laureate projects that focus on uplifting other through language, from wonder walks in nature while writing, to composing poems to praise for the people in our lives, to generating hope through creativity for incarcerated teens and adults.