Naropa University Summer Writing Program
Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics
June 14–July 11, 2010

BOULDER, Colo. (December 16, 2009)— Naropa University presents its legendary Summer Writing Program, co-founded in 1974 by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman. This internationally celebrated program represents a lineage of experimental poetics, cultural activism, and meditative awareness. This year's program runs June 14–July 11, 2010, a dynamic four-week convocation of students, poets, fiction writers, scholars, translators, performance artists, musicians, and others working in small press publishing.

Each of the four weeks focuses on a theme, with workshops, lectures, panels, readings, and special events by our distinguished and diverse faculty. Below is just a sample of what to expect:

June 14-20
Week One—Poet or Assassin?
Faculty include: Charles Alexander, Junior Burke, Julie Carr, Linh Dinh, Thalia Field, Ross Gay, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Laird Hunt, Stephen Graham Jones, Bhanu Kapil, Joanne Kyger, Ann Lauterbach, Jaime Manrique, Jennifer Moxley, Jennifer Scappettone, David Trinidad

“The assassin is the one who bombards the existing people with molecular populars that are forever closing all of the assemblages, hurling them into an even wider and deeper black hole. The poet is one who lets loose molecular populations in hopes that this will sow the seeds of, or even engender the people to come − open a cosmos” (Deleuze & Guattari). Paul Virilio also posits the question: “To live as poet or assassin?” This week, our writers will consider personal ethos, including their current projects and “roles” in the world as scholars, activists, and educators. Where do cultures within cultures reside? To whom are we beholden?

June 21-27
Week Two—Planet News: Investigating Eco-Ethos-Eros
Faculty Include: Jane Augustine, Caroline Bergvall, Jack Collom, Samuel R. Delany, Alan Gilbert, Michael Heller, Brenda Hillman, Lisa Jarnot, Tracie Morris, Daniel Pinchbeck, Evelyn Reilly, Elizabeth Robinson, James Stevens, Mary Tasillo

Considering both human and non-human elements, where does our writing practice intersect with others? A sense of empathy, one evidenced in the mirror neurons of chimps, attracts our attention. From flowers, spiders, to the wooly mammoth, we will consider our ongoing investigative projects in “nature” as templates for radical shifts in research and imagination. Eros suggests we fall more in love with our world and the dharma suggests we do the same. What does it mean for locals here at Naropaland, who continue to struggle with the karma of Rocky Flats plutonium waste?

June 28-July 4
Week Three—Great Divide and Common Ground
Faculty Include: Sinan Antoon, Sherwin Bitsui, Xi Chuan, Dolores Dorantes, Jack Hirschman, Jen Hofer, Anselm Hollo, Bob Holman, Brian Kiteley, Semezdin Mehmedinovic, Murat Nemet-Nejat, Akilah Oliver, Margaret Randall, Julia Seko

This week, writers from Bosnia, Turkey, Mexico, China, and indigenous America join us as we consider ways to acknowledge the richness of linguistic, historical, and ritual difference, yet enjoy common ground. What are the stories of ethnicity that we arrive with and where do they go? How do we regard the power structures that dominate our lives? What do we read and in what tongues? How do we translate and study our various maps and boundaries?

July 5-11
Week Four—Public Space: Performance and Small Press Publishing
Faculty Include: Penny Arcade, Amiri Baraka, Laynie Browne, Douglas Dunn, Danielle Dutton, Brian Evenson, Colin Frazer, Joanna Howard, Allan Kornblum, Rachel Levitsky, Akilah Oliver, Julie Patton, Selah Saterstrom, Patricia Smith, Steven Taylor

Performance (from the French parfornir) is to enact a ritual in front of an audience. “Can you hear me in the back?” Vladimir Mayakovsky inquires in a famous poem. We will work on writing with an ear to project our voices, bodies, and imaginations to the back of the room. Dancers, singers, actors, and word workers of many ilks join the mix this week. Collaboration is an effort that turns in many directions in that it takes two or more people to operate a printshop or found a small press in order to send books out into the ozone. How do we keep the spirit going for many decades, as has, for instance, Coffee House Press, whose founder and publisher, Allan Kornblum, joins us this week?

For more information or to receive a Summer Writing Program Catalog, call 303-245-4600 or email swpr@naropa.edu. Visit our website at www.naropa.edu/swp.

Accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and a member of the North Central Association, Naropa University is a private, nonprofit, nonsectarian liberal arts institution dedicated to advancing contemplative education. This approach to learning integrates the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions, helping students know themselves more deeply and engage constructively with others. The university comprises a four-year undergraduate college and graduate programs in the arts, education, environmental leadership, psychology and religious studies.

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