Patricia Spears Jones, Femme Du Monde
Charles Bernstein hosts a conversation with poet Patricia Spears Jones. Topics include her new poems, the influence of the blues, the Pentecostal church, and sonnets on her work, her dialogue with popular songs, her sense of community, the performance of her work, her contrarian broadsides on politics and culture, and her persistent commitment to beauty.
Patricia Spears Jones grew up in Arkansas but has been living in New York City since the mid-1970s. She is author of the poetry collections Painkiller and Femme du Monde from Tia Church Press, as well as The Weather That Kills from Coffee House Press. Her fourth full collection of poetry, A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems, was released in 2015 from White Pine Press. Jones has been an art activist, including stings as Program Coordinator at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, New Works Program director at the Massachusetts Council of Arts and Humanities, and Director of Planning and Development at The New Museum of Contemporary Art (1994-96). She curates WORDS SUNDAY, a literary and performance series focused on Brooklyn based writers and artists. She also teaches at the City University of New York.
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Conversations and readings with poets and artists, produced in cooperation with PennSound and hosted by Charles Bernstein, the American poet, theorist, editor, and literary scholar. Bernstein was born in New York City in 1950. He is a foundational member and leading practitioner of Language poetry. Bernstein was educated at the Bronx High School of Science and at Harvard University, where he studied philosophy with Stanley Cavell and wrote his final thesis on Gertrude Stein and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
In the mid-1970s Bernstein became active in the experimental poetry scenes in New York and San Francisco, not only as a poet, but also as an editor, publisher, and theorist. With visual artist and wife Susan Bee, Bernstein published several now well-known poets whose work is associated with Language writing.
more In the mid-1970s Bernstein became active in the experimental poetry scenes in New York and San Francisco, not only as a poet, but also as an editor, publisher, and theorist. With visual artist and wife Susan Bee, Bernstein published several now well-known poets whose work is associated with Language writing.
