Readings: Robert Glück & Steven Zultanski

ROBERT GLÜCK

Together with Bruce Boone and Steve Abbott, Robert Glück (*1947 in Cleveland, OH) founded «New Narrative», a literary movement in San Francisco that saw itself, at the end of the 1970s, in dialogue with Language Poetry and the autonomous poetry movements of the time. New Narrative encouraged self-reflexive voices, fluctuation between theory and fiction, and between autobiographical and conceptual writing, prefiguring a shift to contemporary autofiction. New Narrative writers include Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, Camille Roy, and fellow travelers like Chris Kraus, Kathy Acker, Dennis Cooper, and Gary Indiana.

Robert Glück served as director of the San Francisco State University Poetry Center and co-director of the Small Press Traffic Literary Center. He is the author of twelve books, including two novels, Margery Kempe (1994) and Jack the Modernist (1985), two books of stories, books of poetry including Reader (1989), In Commemoration of the Visit (with Kathleen Fraser, 2016) and Communal Nude: Collected Essays (2016). In 2019, Margery Kempe will be republished by New York Review of Books Classics. Robert lives “high on a hill” in San Francisco.

STEVEN ZULTANSKI

Steven Zultanski (*1981 in Trenton, NJ) is the author of several books of poetry including On the Literary Means of Representing the Powerful as Powerless (2018) and the trilogy Agony (2012), Bribery (2014), Honestly (2018). These three explore the boundaries of the subjective or confessional lyrical ego; the limitations of economic and psychological conditions on dialogue and the spaces where autobiographical writing is directed against itself – where self-elevation becomes self-eradication. His critical writings have appeared in Art in America, Frieze, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Mousse Magazine. Steven lives and works in Copenhagen.

«We were thinking about autobiography; by autobiography we meant daydreams, nightdreams, the act of writing, the relationship to the reader, the meeting of flesh and culture, the self as collaboration, the self as disintegration, the gaps, inconsistencies and distortions, the enjambments of power, family, history and language.» - Robert Glück

Organised with Mohamed Almusibli.

From March to May 2019, Kathrin Bentele and Matthew Hanson – and guests – organize a series of events involving screenings, readings, and talks. Check back soon for more info – please join us!

Generously supported by:
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