Laura Kasischke’s most recent book, from which she will read, brings new poems together with work from her previous nine collections of poetry, published over the last twenty-five years. The citation for the National Book Critics Circle Award, which she received in 2011, reads: “No poet alive has worked harder to depict the contemporary American life course: she has shown herself, in sharply vivid poems, as a girl, as a wayward teen, as a young adult, as a passionate and worried mother with a baby, a child, and now a teenaged son…And no poet now at work does better than Kasischke in finding ways to depict not just how we feel about life stages and the people in them but also how we change as those stages go by…Kasischke stands for many among us.” Her collection of new and selected poems gathers together the breadth of this vision, and Kasischke will offer readings from both her earliest and most recent work.
For questions, contact Julie Sparkman at jmallard@umich.edu
Literati is proud to be partnering with the Helen Zell Writers Program to host poet Gregory Pardlo at University of Michigan Museum of Art Apse
Gregory Pardlo’s collection Digest (Four Way Books) won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Digest was also nominated for an NAACP Image Award, named a standout book by the Academy of American Poets, a New York Times best poetry book of the year, and a finalist for the Hurston Wright Legacy Award and INDIEFAB Book of the Year. Gregory Pardlo’s other honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His first poetry collection, Totem, won the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize in 2007.
John U. Bacon is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, including Three and Out; Fourth and Long; and Endzone. He appears often on NPR and national television, and teaches at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and the University of Michigan. He lives in Ann Arbor with his wife and son.
Book:
From New York Times bestselling author John U. Bacon, a gripping narrative history of the largest manmade detonation prior to Hiroshima: in 1917 a ship laden with the most explosives ever packed on a vessel sailed out of Brooklyn’s harbor for the battlegrounds of World War I; when it stopped in Halifax, Nova Scotia, an extraordinary disaster awaited…
Dec. 5 & 19. Monthly open mike storytelling competition sponsored by The Moth, the NYC-based nonprofit storytelling organization that also produces a weekly public radio show. Each month 10 storytellers are selected at random from among those who sign up to tell a 3-5 minute story on the monthly theme. Dec. themes: “Dirt” (Dec. 5) & “Rules” (Dec. 19). The 3 teams of judges are recruited from the audience. Monthly winners compete in a semiannual Grand Slam. Space limited, so it’s smart to arrive early.
7:30-9 p.m. (doors open and sign-up begins at 6 p.m.), Greyline, 100 N. Ashley. $8. 764-5118.
Literati is excited to welcome author Richard Retyi who will be discussing his debut book The Book of Ann Arbor: An Extremely Serious History Book. Rich will discuss his book—one of the inaugural releases from the Ann Arbor District Library’s Fifth Avenue Press—as well as reading one of the 41 stories from the book, with photos, music, and details that just wouldn’t fit on the page. He’s also open to answering questions from the audience, no matter how shockingly personal in nature.
About The Book of Ann Arbor:
A suicide submarine parade. Ann Arbor’s top 10 astronauts. Shakey Jake, the Embassy Hotel, and train/building collisions. The birth of Iggy Pop. Nazis getting punched. Visits from heads of state, from presidents to a dictator. The Music Mobile, the Naked Mile and a round-the-world flight. Plus, a few tales of murder, because it happens here too. These are a few of the stories that make up The Book of Ann Arbor.
Richard Retyi is the communications and marketing manager at the Ann Arbor District Library and part of the Ann Arbor Stories podcast.
Literati is proud to be partnering with the Helen Zell Writers Program to host poet Gregory Pardlo at University of Michigan Museum of Art Helmut Stern Auditorium
Gregory Pardlo’s collection Digest (Four Way Books) won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Digest was also nominated for an NAACP Image Award, named a standout book by the Academy of American Poets, a New York Times best poetry book of the year, and a finalist for the Hurston Wright Legacy Award and INDIEFAB Book of the Year. Gregory Pardlo’s other honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His first poetry collection, Totem, won the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize in 2007.
Literati is excited to welcome sportswriter Angelique Chengelis who will be sharing and discussing her new book, Michigan Man: Jim Harbaugh and the Rebirth of Wolverine Football.
About Michigan Man:
All eyes and ears turned toward Ann Arbor in late 2014 when it was announced that Jim Harbaugh would be returning to the Big House as the new head coach of Michigan football. Now, Angelique Chengelis, longtime chronicler of the Wolverines for the Detroit News, gives the inside story on how exactly Harbaugh restored the Michigan program to national title contender status. Learn how he instilled a new culture and rankled rivals with outspokenness, creative tactics, and relentless recruiting. Get the behind-the-scenes story on how and why Harbaugh chose to come back to the university he led to glory as its starting quarterback in the early 1980s. Follow along as Jabrill Peppers, Jake Butt, and others develop into true stars. Michigan Man is a comeback tale, an examination of the rapid turnaround from a five-win team in 2014 to squads that earned 10 wins plus trips to the Citrus and Orange Bowls in 2015 and 2016 respectively. Featuring extensive interviews with Harbaugh himself, this is a book Wolverines faithful and football fans in general will not want to miss.
Angelique Chengelis is a sportswriter for the Detroit News. Michigan football has been her primary beat since 1992, but she has covered countless sporting events including Super Bowls, U.S. Opens, PGA Championships, Ryder Cups, Stanley Cup Finals, NBA Finals, Indianapolis 500, Daytona 500, and NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. She has also been a contributor to ESPN’s NASCAR coverage as part of the NASCAR Now show. She lives in Detroit, Michigan
We are thrilled to welcome professors Philip J. Deloria and Alexander I. Olson to Literati Bookstore to discuss their latest book, American Studies: A User’s Guide.
About American Studies: A User’s Guide
American Studies has long been a home for adventurous students seeking to understand the culture and politics of the United States. This welcoming spirit has found appeal around the world, but at the heart of the field is an identity crisis. Nearly every effort to articulate an American Studies methodology has been rejected for fear of losing intellectual flexibility and freedom. But what if these fears are misplaced? Providing a fresh look at American Studies in practice, this book contends that a shared set of “rules” can offer a springboard to creativity. American Studies: A User’s Guide offers readers a critical introduction to the history and methods of the field as well as useful strategies for interpretation, curation, analysis, and theory
Philip J. Deloria is Carroll Smith-Rosenberg Collegiate Professor of American Culture and History at the University of Michigan. He is a former president of the American Studies Association.
Alexander I. Olson is Assistant Professor in the Mahurin Honors College at Western Kentucky University.
Readings by U-M creative writing grad students, including fiction writers Christina Kim and poet Chelsea Walsh.
7 p.m., UMMA Auditorium, 525 S. State. Free.
The Mark Webster Reading Series presents emerging writers in a warm and relaxed setting. We encourage you to bring your friends – a Webster reading makes for an enjoyable and enlightening Friday evening.
Join us for a Holiday Open House Saturday, December 9 at 2 p.m. Con Lehane, Meg Macy and Sarah Zettel will be joining us. Con will be signing his new mystery Murder in the Manuscript Room. Stay tuned to see who else might turn up!
