Poetry Reading: Ken Taylor and J. Peter Moore

Saturday, October 13, 2018 - 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Event Presenter/Author: 
Ken Taylor & J. Peter Moore

Join us this afternoon for readings by two poets: Ken Taylor and J. Peter Moore. A Q&A and signing will follow the reading.

At the Co-op

RSVP HERE (Please note that your RSVP is requested, not required.)

About self-portrait as joseph cornell: self-portrait as joseph cornell is a series of poems shaped like vertical horizontal boxes, the sort of boxes that Joseph Cornell is renowned for having made. Taylor has channeled Cornell's spirit and sense of composition to create this original work.

About Zippers and Jeans: Taking its title from a song by the Memphis musician Harlan T. Bobo, Zippers and Jeans tells the story of a man who upon having his heart broken finds that he can commune with inanimate objects. At regular intervals, the real world leans in on our loveless speaker, cajoling him through the language of Anglo-Saxon riddles, plying him with snapshots of the past, pushing him on his search for the simple life. Along the way, the reader will find a series of short essays on the aesthetics of vernacular culture, which focus on topics such as mass-produced musical instruments, professional wrestling, and the history of deadpan comedy. Like the story of unrequited love, each of these topics relate back to the central trajectory of the book, a descent into the cultural mythology of Memphis.

About Ken Taylor: Ken Taylor is the co-founder and contributing editor of Lute & Drum, an online journal of poetry and poetics. He is the author of self-portrait as joseph cornell (Pressed Wafer, 2016) and the chapbooks: dog with elizabethan collar (selva oscura press, 2015) and first the trees, now this (Three Count Pour, 2013). His poetry has appeared in Hambone, Volt, Blackbird, Blackbox Manifold, Carolina Quarterly, and others.

About J. Peter Moore: J. Peter Moore is a literary critic, poet and editor, working at the intersection of multiple disciplines, including linguistics, architecture, visual arts and black studies. His scholarly project, Other Than a Citizen: Vernacular Poetics in Postwar America, examines the work of avant-garde poets who turned to the unadorned, anonymous practices of everyday life to find a model for countering the institutional regimentation of the postwar social world. He is the author of two poetry collections, Southern Colortype (Three Count Pour, 2013) and Zippers and Jeans (selva oscura, 2017), and the editor and co-founder of Lute & Drum: An Online Arts Journal. He currently lives in Lafayette, Indiana, where he teaches as a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Honors College at Purdue University. When he is not writing or talking about writing, he can be found behind the three-point line, working on his shot.

Event Location: 
The Seminary Co-op Bookstore
5751 S. Woodlawn Ave.
Chicago, IL 60637