Description:

Join Northwestern's Poetry and Poetics Colloquium for a reading co-sponsored by the Guild Literary Complex with poets Daniel Borzutzky and Justin Petropoulos, who will excavate the social and political territory of margins in the Guild Literary Complex’s monthly reading series.

Margins, Marginality, Marginalized bodies and voices, Colonialism, “Latino/a Literature” are some of the contemporary yet enduring concepts that permeate November’s edition of Palabra Pura. Curated and hosted by the poet and educator Paul Martinez Pompa, the program will be held at La Bruquena Restaurant (2726 West Division Street 61, upstairs) on Wednesday, November 19, 7:30–9:00 p.m. The program is free and open to the public. It begins with an open mic, and will include readings from and discussion led by the featured poets: Daniel Borzutzky and Justin Petropoulos.

The Poetry and Poetics Colloquium will be hosting a reading and workshop with Daniel Borzutzky and Justin Petropoulos on Thursday, November 20th, 12:30pm in the Hagstrum Room (University Hall 201).

THE ARTISTS

Daniel Borzutzky was born in Pennsylvania, of Chilean heritage. His books include In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economy (Nightboat, forthcoming); The Book of Interfering Bodies (Nightboat, 2011); the two full-length volumes of poetry, The Ecstasy of Capitulation (BlazeVox, 2007); a poetry chapbook, Failure in the Imagination (2007), and Arbitrary Tales (Ravena Press, 2005). He has translated a number of works by Chilean writers, including Raúl Zurita’s The Country of Planks (Action Books, forthcoming) and Jame Luis Huenún’s Port Trakl (2008). His work has been recognized by grants from the PEN American Center, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council. He has also taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Koç University in Istanbul, and Wilbur Wright College of the City Colleges of Chicago.

Justin Petropoulos is the author of two collections of poetry, Eminent Domain (Marsh Hawk Press, 2011)—selected by Anne Waldman for the 2010 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize (Jaded Ibis Press, 2013), a collaborative work with multimedia artist, Carla Gannis. His poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Crab Creek Review, Gulf Coast, Mandorla, Portland Review, and Spinning Jenny. Justin is a contributing editor for Entropy magazine and the program director of an after-school program for at-risk, elementary age children. He is also an adjunct faculty member at New Jersey City University, where he teaches composition and creative writing.

THE CURATOR

Born and raised in suburban Chicago, Paul Martinez Pompa holds his MFA in Creative Writing from Indiana University. He is the author of My Kill Adore Him, a collection of poems published by the University of Notre Dame Press (2009) and a chapbook, Pepper Spray (2006). He is a recent recipient of an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award. He teaches composition and poetry at Triton College and lives in Chicago.

The Guild Literary Complex’s “From the Margins of the Margins” is co-sponsored by Poetry and Poetics Colloquium; the Latina/o Studies Program; the Department of Spanish & Portuguese; and the Center for the Writing Arts.