Reading and conversation with Tyrone Williams, literary scholar and author of six collections of poetry, and Julie Patton, poet, composer, performer, permacultarist, and recipient of grants in poetry from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
Related Events:
Hands-on community writing workshop with Tyrone Williams and Julie Patton
October 1, 2019 - 7:00pm
Presented in partnership with the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater
Co-Lab: Tyrone Williams and Julie Patton
October 2, 2019 - 6:00pm
Tyrone Williams and Julie Patton share work in progress with responses from students in the course Studio in African American Poetry and Poetics
Colloquium with Tyrone Williams
October 3, 2019 - 12:30pm to 12:45pm
Presented by the Humanities Center at the University of Pittsburgh
Colloquium with Tyrone Williams, “Identity Politics, New Criticism and the Civil Rights Movement,” with responses from Lauren Russell and Charles Legere
Poet Tyrone Williams was born in Detroit, Michigan and earned his BA, MA, and PhD at Wayne State University. He is the author of a number of chapbooks, including Convalescence (1987); Futures, Elections (2004); Musique Noir (2006); and Pink Tie (2011), among others. His full-length collections of poetry include c.c. (2002), On Spec (2008), The Hero Project (2009), Adventures of Pi (2011), and Howell (2011). Williams is the editor of African American Literature: Revised Edition (2008). He teaches at Xavier University in Cincinnati.
Williams’s work draws on a variety of sources to challenge and investigate language, history, and race. In an interview with the Volta Williams noted, “I don’t ‘revere’ the English language but I use it and, on occasion, abuse it.” And of his interest in grammar and linguistics, he stated: “every grammatical marker is purposeful … every torque of the language renders ‘meaning’ problematic—which seems to me the precise ‘condition’ of African-American existence in particular and ‘American’ life in general.”
Julie Patton is a Poet, Composer, Performer, Permaculturist, Recycler, born in Cleveland, OH, in 1956, and lives in New York, NY. Her poetics take the form of scrolls, extended texts, limited edition work, performances, and site-specific installations.Patton's performance work emphasizes improvisation, collaboration, and otherworldly chora-graphs, and bridges literary and musical composition. She has performed at many international venues and festivals including the Stone, Jazz Standard, Festival Internacional de Poesía in Medellín, Colombia; The Kitchen, La Bâtie-Festival de Genève. Patton is also a frequent collaborator with choreographers, poets, filmmakers, and composers.
As iZ by 
Between Red and Green: Narrative of the Black Brigade by 
The Hero Project of the Century by 
On Spec by 
African American Literature by 
