4.06.2006
ALBERT GOLDBARTH, "THE AMERICAN POET OF HIS GENERATION"
Albert Goldbarth, the only living two-time winner of the National Book
Critics Circle Award in poetry and the author of some thirty volumes of
poetry and prose, will read from his work on Monday, April 10, at 7 p.m.
upstairs at Tasty World, on the corner of Broad and Jackson streets. The
reading is open to the public free of charge.
Goldbarth will be touring for the Georgia Poetry Circuit, a consortium
of colleges and universities around the state which has been featuring
nationally and internationally known writers for more than twenty years. *The
Georgia Review*, the University of Georgia's acclaimed quarterly journal of
arts and letters, is UGA's coordinating sponsor for the Circuit.
Critic Judith Kitchen has said that "Albert Goldbarth just may be the
American poet of his generation for the ages. Often humorous but always
serious, Goldbarth combines erudite research, pop-culture fanaticism, and
personal anecdote in ways that make his writings among the most
stylistically recognizable in the literary world." The level of ambition in
Goldbarth's work is revealed by a glance at a few of his book titles: *Arts
and Sciences*, *The Gods*, *Combinations of the Universe*, and *Great Topics
of the World*.
Goldbarth's prodigious output—roughly one book per year for three
decades—has included nearly two dozen poetry collections, a handful of essay
collections, and a novel. Several of his books were first published the the
UGA Press, including *Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology *(poems), winner of the
1992 National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2007, Graywolf Press will
publish Goldbarth's *The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems, 1972-2007*.
Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Wichita State University since
1987, Goldbarth has earned three fellowships from the National Endowment for
the Arts and one from the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as the Center for
the Study of Science Fiction Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.
Here is one section out of nine in Albert Goldbarth's poem "Too Much,"
first published in *The Georgia Review* and then included in *Heaven and
Earth: A Cosmology*:
"Give me a villain. Give me just one clearcut targeted
ne'er-do-well with rat eyes and a smoking gun, to hold
responsible all night while the stink of cordite settles.
Well, he isn't here. He never was. It's all of us
torturing all of us. It's dressed in its Sunday best.
And the boy with the tumor? Of course The Great
Shaheesh the Mystic Light was no more help
than the great chemotherapy; now he's barely a doll
of himself. I've watched his mother watch his face
with the sun on it, then with the moon on it, watching
until time had no meaning: we're floating,
falling, yes, and even the unhearable klaxon-horn
of a hadron, the unbroached stroke of a lepton, just a single
neutrino barely in existence's embrace, is too much."
Selected titles by Albert Goldbarth will be available for purchase at
the reading. For further information, contact the office of *The Georgia
Review* at 706-542-3481 or at garev@uga.edu.
Critics Circle Award in poetry and the author of some thirty volumes of
poetry and prose, will read from his work on Monday, April 10, at 7 p.m.
upstairs at Tasty World, on the corner of Broad and Jackson streets. The
reading is open to the public free of charge.
Goldbarth will be touring for the Georgia Poetry Circuit, a consortium
of colleges and universities around the state which has been featuring
nationally and internationally known writers for more than twenty years. *The
Georgia Review*, the University of Georgia's acclaimed quarterly journal of
arts and letters, is UGA's coordinating sponsor for the Circuit.
Critic Judith Kitchen has said that "Albert Goldbarth just may be the
American poet of his generation for the ages. Often humorous but always
serious, Goldbarth combines erudite research, pop-culture fanaticism, and
personal anecdote in ways that make his writings among the most
stylistically recognizable in the literary world." The level of ambition in
Goldbarth's work is revealed by a glance at a few of his book titles: *Arts
and Sciences*, *The Gods*, *Combinations of the Universe*, and *Great Topics
of the World*.
Goldbarth's prodigious output—roughly one book per year for three
decades—has included nearly two dozen poetry collections, a handful of essay
collections, and a novel. Several of his books were first published the the
UGA Press, including *Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology *(poems), winner of the
1992 National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2007, Graywolf Press will
publish Goldbarth's *The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems, 1972-2007*.
Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Wichita State University since
1987, Goldbarth has earned three fellowships from the National Endowment for
the Arts and one from the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as the Center for
the Study of Science Fiction Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.
Here is one section out of nine in Albert Goldbarth's poem "Too Much,"
first published in *The Georgia Review* and then included in *Heaven and
Earth: A Cosmology*:
"Give me a villain. Give me just one clearcut targeted
ne'er-do-well with rat eyes and a smoking gun, to hold
responsible all night while the stink of cordite settles.
Well, he isn't here. He never was. It's all of us
torturing all of us. It's dressed in its Sunday best.
And the boy with the tumor? Of course The Great
Shaheesh the Mystic Light was no more help
than the great chemotherapy; now he's barely a doll
of himself. I've watched his mother watch his face
with the sun on it, then with the moon on it, watching
until time had no meaning: we're floating,
falling, yes, and even the unhearable klaxon-horn
of a hadron, the unbroached stroke of a lepton, just a single
neutrino barely in existence's embrace, is too much."
Selected titles by Albert Goldbarth will be available for purchase at
the reading. For further information, contact the office of *The Georgia
Review* at 706-542-3481 or at garev@uga.edu.
# posted by Sabrina Orah Mark @ 1:33 AM 
