Showing posts with label Raymond Lifchez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Raymond Lifchez. Show all posts

May 25, 2016

Lyn Hejinian & The Judith Lee Stronach Poetry Lectures


Teaching the Slow Event

photos by Styrous®


Judith Lee Stronach was born on May 25, 1943. She was a writer, poet, journalist and educator.  

The Judith Lee Stronach Poetry Lecture series is normally held in the Reading Room of the Morrison Memorial Library on the University of California Berkeley campus but due to an impending strike, it was relocated to the Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California.   








    



The exhibition currently showing at the Magnus is The Jewish World | A Book Installation which gives insights into the richness and variety of Jewish cultures with art and material culture hailing from India, Spain, Yemen, Germany, Tunisia, Turkey, Morocco, China, Russia, the United States, and other regions where Jews once lived or continue to live.    











The lecture opened with an introduction by Professor Raymond Lifchez, founder and mentor of the Judith Lee Stronach Poetry Lecture series which began in 2003. He spoke of the impact Judith had on the cultural and ethnic communities of the East Bay. More info below.



Lifchez introduced Poet, Harmony Holiday, the author of Negro League Baseball (Fence Books, 2011) and Hollywood Forever (Fence Books, 2016). She curates the Afrosonics archive of Jazz Poetics and audio culture, and teaches at Otis College in Los Angeles.     




Ms. Holiday was followed by Guest Lecturer, Lyn Hejinian, Director of the Creative Writing Minor Program at  the University of California, Berkeley.





During her lecture Ms. Hejinian held up a tiny piece of paper . . .


 . . . on which was printed an even tinier poem by Lorine Niedecker.

Lights, lifts
parts nicely opposed                                                             
this white  
                      lice lithe
pink bird   
                                                 - poem by Lorine Niedecker

Lorine Niedecker was a Wisconsin poet and the only woman associated with the Objectivist poets. She is widely credited for demonstrating how an Objectivist poetic could handle the personal as subject matter. 

Niedecker was born on Black Hawk Island near Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin and lived most of her life in rural isolation. She grew up surrounded by the sights and sounds of the river until she moved to Fort Atkinson to attend school. The environment of birds, trees, water and marsh influenced her later poetry. 

Niedecker died on December 31, 1970, from a cerebral hemorrhage. She left behind several unpublished typescripts. Many other Niedecker papers were burned by Albert Millen, her husband, who said he did so at Niedecker's request.    

Niedecker's comprehensive Collected Works, edited by Jenny Penberthy, were published by the University of California Press in 2002. A centennial celebration of Niedecker's life and work, held in Milwaukee and Fort Atkinson in 2003, included treks to her two Rock River-edged homes on Black Hawk Island and symposium sessions including presentations by scholars and poets.   



The lecture was followed by a reception . . .  




                 Lyn Hejinian & David Heiden                   .


The Judith Lee Stronach Human Rights Award is given annually to an individual or organization who has made an outstanding contribution to the movement for global justice. The inspiration for this award was Judith Lee Stronach (1943 – 2002) a committed human rights activist who was instrumental in the founding of CJA. The award is presented during CJA’s Annual Dinner.   





The Creative Writing Minor Program is offered by the Office of Undergraduate and Interdisciplinary Studies in the Undergraduate Division of the College of Letters and Science. The approved courses students take to satisfy the minor course requirements are offered by over thirty departments on campus. Interested undergraduate students in any major may earn an interdepartmental minor in Creative Writing by completing three approved upper-division creative writing courses and two approved upper-division literature courses from any department that offers them, satisfying the minor requirements, and declaring the minor.  


May 25, 1943
photographer unknown



Styrous® ~ Wednesday, May 25, 2016     


May 21, 2013

Nikky Finney & The Judith Lee Stronach Poetry Lectures

Nikky Finney program notes
program photo by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
photo of program by Styrous©


On Friday, May 17, I made my way to the University of California campus to attend the tenth annual Judith Lee Stronach Poetry Lecture Series on the Teaching of Poetry.

photo by Styrous©


Once again, the event was held in the beautiful Morrison Memorial Library reading room located within the Doe Library.

photo by Styrous©

photo by Styrous©

photos by Styrous©


Raymond Lifchez, Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, is the organizer of the series which is dedicated to the memory of Judith Lee Stronach.

photo by Styrous©


Mr. Lifchez opened the proceeding with a reading from one of Ms. Stronach's poems, Copes's Hat, from her book of poems, Love Is Strong As Death, published by The Bancroft Library, ©2011.

photo by Styrous©


Lynn Hejinian, poet and professor,  Department of English, University of California, Berekely, then introduced the guest speaker, Nikky Finney.



Ms. Finney spoke about and read from her poem, Hog Killing. I have liked poetry all my life. I have found it intellectually stimulating. Hog Killing was definitely thought provoking but reached me on a visceral level I've never experience before. The theme was the "Sensitive Child". She spoke of the interpretations she had of that phrase which was used by her mother in reference to her throughout her life; how her interpretations changed as she grew older, wiser and more experienced. It was brilliantly written and the most moving moment in poetry I can remember.

After the lecture I was fortunate enough to snap this photograph of her in the hallway outside of the library.

photo by Styrous©


Thank you for the photograph and for the inspiration, Nikky.

Ms. Finney's book of her poems, Head Off & Split, published by Triquarterly, won the 2011 National Book Award.


Also see my first entry about the poetry series:
The Judith Lee Stronach Poetry Lectures Gary Snyder




Styrous© - Tuesday, May 21, 2013

May 13, 2012

Gary Snyder & The Judith Lee Stronach Poetry Lectures


This is a VISUAL presentation of this year's Judith Lee Stronach Poetry Lectures series which was held at the University of California, Berkeley, on May 11, 2012, in the Morrison Memorial Library. The event featured the lecture by Gary Snyder, Cold Mountain: the Life of Creative Translation.

I wanted to convey the visual grandeur of the event and too many words would get in the way (I know, a contradiction). For those who want more information, the links to other sites (words in green) tell the substance of the event. The beauty of the interior details are near the end of this entry.

(click on any image to see slideshow)
Raymond Lifchez, Professor of Architecture,
welcomed the audience and introduced the guest speakers.
 photo by Styrous®


Gary Snyder, born in San Francisco and raised in the Pacific Northwest, worked as a logger, a seaman on a Pacific tanker, studied Asian (Japanese, Chinese) languages At UC, Berkeley and Zen Buddhism. He was contemporaries with Beat writers Alan Ginsberg, Kenneth Rexroth, Jack Kerouac and Zen philosopher, Alan Watts.


Mr. Snyder read from some of his poems, some humorous, some poignant. He mentioned his association with the Beat poets and writers but his focus that evening was his association with Han Shan, whose poetry he translated in his book, Cold Mountain: The Life of Creative Translation.

The audience was transfixed.

 

The Library was filled to the rafters for the event. 

Before the proceedings had started, I found myself sitting next to a charming and lovely young woman who turned out to be the Spring 2010 winner of the The Judith Lee Stronach Baccalaureate Prize, Irene Kucherova.



An architecture major, Ms. Kucherova was awarded the Stronach Baccalaureate Prize for a social outreach and enrichment project at an orphanage in Kherson in the Ukraine.

Irene Kucherova with the childresn
photographer unknown


The  Judith Lee Stronach Baccalaureate Prize was established in Stronach's honor by her husband, Raymond Lifchez.


After the reading there was a simple but elegant reception.









The event was conducted in the elegant Morrison Memorial Library, (one of 32 University of California, Berkeley, libraries) opened in 1928 as a traditional library reading room. It is nestled within the Doe Library, a Beaux-Arts Classical building designed by campus architect, John Galen Howard. It is complete with coffered ceilings, overstuffed chairs, Oriental rugs, busts, brass reading lamps and fine art.

It is beyond words to describe the intricate architectural beauty of the space, so, images will have to do it for me.





Doe Library entrance
What a beautiful evening it was.


 ~ ~ ~

Judith Lee Stronach donated to many organizations including the largest gift the National Organization for Women has ever received in its 38-year history. She founded the Judith Lee Stronach Human Rights Award which is given annually to an individual or organization who has made an outstanding contribution to the movement for global justice.

The Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, a public interest law office located in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, received the 2009 Judith Lee Stronach Human Rights Award from the Center for Justice & Accountability. Founded in 1995, its mission is to work with victims of human rights violations and to force open the doors of Haiti's justice system for the majority of Haitians who are poor,

Judith Lee Stronach was an arts advocate and rights activist as reported by SFGATE. I remember house-sitting for her on Cedar Street in the late 80's and early 90's; at some point she published a book, Visible and Vulnerable, the People We See on Berkeley's Streets. It was an innovative effort to provide assistance for the homeless to earn money by selling the books. It was written to encourage them to open choices that enabled them and provided them with the skills they needed to problem-solve for themselves. She published the books and paid for them out of her own pocket then gave the books for free to the homeless to sell on the streets and keep the money for themselves. I remember the homeless people who picked up the books and drifted through the beautifully simple but elegant house. It was quite a contradiction of life styles, to say the least.

The Judith Lee Stronach Poetry Lectures series, an annual event, are available in print at the University of California Press.


Styrous® ~ May, 2012