Next Up | Jaap Blonk

Internationally renowned sound poet Jaap Blonk will perform in the UMaine New Writing Series on Thursday, March 22, 2012, at 7pm in the Black Box Theater on the second floor of the Class of 1944 Hall (note unusual start time and venue).

Jaap Blonk

Jaap Blonk (born 1953 in Woerden, Holland) is a self-taught composer, performer and poet. He went to university for mathematics and musicology but did not finish those studies. In the late 1970s he took up saxophone and started to compose music. A few years later he discovered his potential as a vocal performer, at first in reciting poetry and later on in improvisations and his own compositions. For almost two decades the voice was his main means for the discovery and development of new sounds. From around the year 2000 on Blonk started work with electronics, at first using samples of his own voice, then extending the field to include pure sound synthesis as well. He took a year off of performing in 2006. As a result, his renewed interest in mathematics made him start a research of the possibilities of algorithmic composition for the creation of music, visual animation and poetry.

Can’t wait for the event? Feel free to do a little improvisatory composition of your own on the Blonk Organ.

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On Facebook? Consider joining the NWS group here.

The UMaine New Writing Series is sponsored by the English Department and the National Poetry Foundation with support from the Lloyd H. Elliott Fund, the Milton Ellis Memorial Fund, the Honors College, and the Cultural Affairs/Distinguished Lecture Series Committee. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Pulp & Paper Foundation for the use of the Soderberg Center. FMI contact Steve Evans at steven dot evans at maine dot edu or at 207-581-3818.

If you have a disability that may require accommodation for a NWS event, please contact Ann Smith in the office of Disability Support Service, 121 East Annex, 581-2319 (Voice) or 581-2311 (TDD).

Next Up | Devin Johnston & Elizabeth Arnold

Poets Devin Johnston (NWS F’2004) and Elizabeth Arnold will read in the New Writing Series on Thursday, March 15, 2012, at 4:30pm in 100 Lord Hall (note venue). The event is free & open to the public, though seating is limited.

Elizabeth Arnold’s most recent book is Effacement (Flood, 2010). She is also the author of Civilization (Flood, 2006) and The Reef (U of Chicago P, 1999). Her poems have appeared in Conjunctions, Paris Review, Poetry, and Slate. She is on the MFA faculty at the University of Maryland and lives in Hyattsville, Maryland. This will be her first appearance in the New Writing Series.

Devin Johnston’s most recent book is Traveler (FSG, 2011). He is the author of three other volumes of poetry, Sources (Turtle Point, 2008), Aversions (Omnidawn, 2004) and Telepathy (Paper Bark, 2001). Creaturely and Other Essays appeared from Turtle Point in 2010. Johnston co-directs Flood Editions, an independent publishing house, and teaches at Saint Louis University. Johnston last read in the New Writing Series in November of 2004.

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On Facebook? Consider joining the NWS group here.

The UMaine New Writing Series is sponsored by the English Department and the National Poetry Foundation with support from the Lloyd H. Elliott Fund, the Milton Ellis Memorial Fund, the Honors College, and the Cultural Affairs/Distinguished Lecture Series Committee. Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Pulp & Paper Foundation for the use of the Soderberg Center. FMI contact Steve Evans at steven dot evans at maine dot edu or at 207-581-3818.

If you have a disability that may require accommodation for a NWS event, please contact Ann Smith in the office of Disability Support Service, 121 East Annex, 581-2319 (Voice) or 581-2311 (TDD).