17 Poets! Special Double Feature Sponsored by Poets and Writers, Inc

March 24 at the Gold Mine Saloon, 7:30 PM (www.17poets.com)

Special Double Feature Sponsored by Poets & Writers

Louisiana Poet Laureate Darrell Bourqueand New York Poet and Translator Bill Zavatsky

Darrell Bourque is Professor Emeritus in English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he served as director of the Creative Writing and Interdisciplinary Humanities programs. His poetry books include Plainsongs, The Doors Between Us, Burnt Water Suite and The Blue Boat, and his poems from Plainsongs are featured in the Where Land Meets Sky, a catalog of the works of artist Elemore Morgan, Jr.
He continues to work as poetry workshop leader and consultant, mostly with the Louisiana Affiliates of the National Writing Project. In November of 2007 he was appointed as Louisiana Poet Laureate, 2008‐2009, by Governor Kathleen Blanco, and his personal initiative for the laureateship is to develop poetry audiences by teaching and reading in the pre‐college classroom as well as in the state's libraries.

Bill Zavatsky grew up in Connecticut and has lived in Manhattan since 1965. He has published two books of poems, most recently Where X Marks the Spot. His co-translation (with Zack Rogow) of Earthlight: Poems by André Breton, won the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize. His co-translation of The Poems of A. O. Barnabooth by Valery Larbaud (with Ron Padgett) was republished in 2008 by Black Widow Press. His most recent anthology appearance is in Seriously Funny, an anthology of humorous poetry edited by Barbara Hamby and David Kirby. Bill’s “Elegy” for Bill Evans appeared on the sleeve of the You Must Believe in Spring album, and is included in the reissue CD. For the pianist Marc Copland, Bill has written thirteen poems that serve as liner notes for twelve CDs, the most recent being a solo recording, Alone and a soon-to-be-released quartet date with Greg Osby and Lewis Nash. Bill himself is a pianist and retains an abiding love for the great pianists of the New Orleans tradition. He has been awarded grants in poetry from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Twice he has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, and in 2008 was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry. He teaches English in the high school at the Trinity School in Manhattan.
March 31