La parola da casa, Serena Piccoli

what a week it’s been to be in literary chicago. i went to readings by peter gizzi, tom pickard, jeff clark, and christine hume. the gizzi/pickard reading was the best reading i have been to in several years. gizzi’s reformulation of the lyrical mode seems to be one possibility for pulling american poetry onto a new progressive avenue. pickard’s work was just fun poetry (in a depressing type of way i relate to since i recently went through a divorce and he wrote about his feelings after divorce). at the reading, some of chicago’s best poets (and one from cincinnati) were gathered, and as a surprise, anselm hollo was there. as if that were not enough, yesterday was the zukofsky conference at the uoc. i started my morning there listening to margorie perloff and made it back to the conference to hear the end of susuan stewart’s talk. the task of reevaluating zukofsky’s work is difficult but important. (i also presented a paper at a conference myself on friday, but it was a minor affair.) plus, on the near horizon is a reading by charles bernstein at the discrete series next weekend. what is happening to our city of big shoulders, our outpost of liberalism in a place that olson calls “the fulcrum of America”?