Pictures from The Bash

Jim Finnegan, Marjorie Perloff and John Serio

Marjorie Perloff delivered the 2009 Wallace Stevens Birthday Bash lecture at Hartford Public Library. The title of her talk was “Beyond Adagia: Eccentric Design in Wallace Stevens’ Poetry .” John Serio was last year’s speaker and he recently edited a new Selected Poems of Wallace Stevens.

Dan Schnaidt, Karim Ahmed and David Epstein

Dan, Karim and David are board members of the Friends & Enemies.

Marjorie Perloff, Lonnie Black and John Crockett

Marjorie Perloff with Lonnie Black, also a board member, and John Crockett, a longtime member of The Friends & Enemies and someone who can actually tell stories of meeting Wallace Stevens on a number of occasions.

Jim Finnegan & Kat Lyons toast a sucessful event.

Kat Lyons runs Connecticut Center for the Book, the organization that sponsored the Wallace Stevens Birthday Bash.

Wallace Stevens bust by Frederic Blatt, c. 2002

In memory of her husband William T. Ford, Dee Ford of Anchorage Alaska donated this lovely bronze bust to the Wallace Stevens Room at Hartford Public Library.

Bash photos courtesy of Mary Crean

Wallace Stevens Birthday Bash – Nov. 7

14th Annual
‘Wallace Stevens Birthday Bash’

Saturday, November 7 2009, 6:30 P.M.

Hartford Public Library
500 Main Street, Hartford, CT

Program begins at 6:30 P.M.

Featured Speaker—

MARJORIE PERLOFF

Revisiting the Adagia:
The Role of Aphorism
in Wallace Stevens’ Poetry

“Poetry is a pheasant disappearing in the brush.”
—Wallace Stevens, Adagia

Birthday Cake & Champagne after the Program!

Tickets are $45 per person; send check payable to:
Connecticut Center for the Book
500 Main Street
Hartford CT 06103.

Or to reserve your tickets at the door,
email Kat Lyons: klyons@hplct.org
or call 860-695-6320.

Sponsored by
Connecticut Center for the Book
at the Hartford Public Library
with help from
The Friends & Enemies of Wallace Stevens.

For more information, contact
James Finnegan, 860-508-2810
jforjames@aol.com

Wallace Stevens Walk Dedication

Wallace Stevens Walk Dedication

June 11, 2009, 5 p.m.
The Hartford, 690 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT

Please join us for the dedication of the Wallace Stevens Walk.

On Thursday, June 11, at 5pm, employees of The Hartford Financial Services Group, members of Friends & Enemies of Wallace Stevens, as well as the general public will convene for a dedication of The Wallace Stevens Walk, a 2.4 mile self-guided walking tour that traces the path the poet took each day to and from his Hartford home.

Beginning at The Hartford, where Stevens served as vice president beginning in 1934, and ending at his former home at 118 Westerly Terrace, the Walk traverses the Asylum Avenue section of Hartford’s Asylum Hill and West End neighborhoods.

The course of The Wallace Stevens Walk is marked by 13 Connecticut granite stones, each uniquely carved and engraved with a stanza from “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” a poem among Stevens’ most well known and frequently studied works.

For more info, email JforJames@aol.com

Wallace Stevens Program Reading, Apr. 2 & 3, Heather McHugh

Heather McHugh / Wallace Stevens Poetry Program

Thurs. April 2: Konover Auditorium, UConn, Storrs Campus, 8 pm
Friday April 3: Greater Hartford Classical Magnet School, 85 Woodland, Hartford CT, 12 pm
Sponsored by The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc.

Heather McHugh is the author of seven collections of poetry including Eyeshot, which was short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize, and Hinge Sign, a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times Book Review “Notable Book of the Year.” She has also published three books of translations, including the poems of Paul Celan and a book of critical essays, Broken English. Recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Award, and the Guggenheim Foundation, McHugh is a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. McHugh’s poems “are both comic and profound” wrote Publisher’s Weekly. “Their depth comes from the belly laugh of the Medusa.”

The Shimmer of Wallace Stevens

The Shimmer (of Wallace Stevens), from philosopher Wesley Cooper’s essay on his blog.

The blog is moving. / The blackbird must be flying.

We’ve opened this blog for posting news items and event announcements related to Wallace Stevens and our organization.