What We Talk About When We Talk About The New York School

Hey all you readers (both of you) I’ve been tapped to sit on a Zoom panel for this, the inaugural debut meeting of the Network for New York School Studies (NNYSS).

Why? You might ask. Yeah, I know, me too 

Well, it began in 2019 (actually much earlier, but for now let’s stick with 2019). There was a call for papers for the symposium in Paris and because, of course, I’d already written some stuff about my 2017 trip to Great Spruce Head Island and because I’d continued to do some research into topics aroused by that visit, I submitted a paper.

It was accepted in Dec of 2019. My recollection—because, understandably a lifetime has passed since then—is that I confirmed at least I’d Skype in or something to deliver the paper via online, with, perhaps, the idea, I might also go to the symposium, which was definitely PUT ON HOLD when Corona virus was declared a major worldwide pandemic.

Then lockdown, etc.

So as I was browsing in my browser in February, I saw that the conference is back on with some online components and wrote to the committee asking if they still wanted my paper. They said they thought it was too long for what they were revising their schedule for, BUT could I sit on a panel. Sure, I wrote.

Then, lo and behold, I discovered who else was on this panel. The curative director of the St. Marks Poetry Project, the founder/director of The Poetry Project on PBS, widely published poets and scholars of the avant-garde. Etc.

And, me.

Imagine my panic. The zoom element will be recorded March 21, to be edited and played at the symposium. I will try to put links here from the NNYSS website, but suffice it to say, I might be the quietest one on the panel. I’ve prepared a 5-minute intro showing how flash, particularly what I teach Flash Memoir, intersects with the New York School of Poets. But, will try to keep up during the following 1-hour discussion of said poets.

For now, The Bluet by James Schuyler:

And is it stamina
that unseasonably freaks
forth a bluet, a
Quaker lady, by
the lake? So small,
a drop of sky that
splashed and held,
four-petaled, creamy
in its throat.

DETAILS:

https://www.nnyss.org/paris-2022-symposium.html

Paris 2022: What We Talk About When We Talk About The NewYork School

Wednesday 20 April 2022