July 7, 2015 (Wurster, Vollmer, Hayes, Ochester, Cvetic)

Hemingway's Poetry Series

July 7, 2015

Michael Wurster  has lived in Pittsburgh since 1964 and is a founding member of Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange. For 17 years, 1993-2010, he taught at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts School . In 2009, his book, The British Detective, was published by Main Street Rag. His two previous poetry collections are The Cruelty of the Desert (Cottage Wordsmiths, 1989) and The Snake Charmer's Daughter (ELEMENOPE, 2000). He is co-editor, with Judith R. Robinson, of the anthology, Along These Rivers: Poetry & Photography from Pittsburgh (Quadrant Press, 2008), and The Brentwood Anthology (Lummox Press, 2014). In 1996, Wurster was an inaugural recipient of a Pittsburgh Magazine Harry Schwalb Excellence in the Arts Award for his contributions to poetry and the community.  

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Judith Vollmer 's newest volume, Water Books, was published in 2012 Autumn House Press. Her previous collections have received the Brittingham, the Center for Book Arts, and the ClevelandState publication prizes. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Her essays and reviews are included in The Cambridge Companion to Baudelaire and elsewhere. She teaches at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburgand in the Drew University MFA Program in Poetry and Poetry in Translation, and is a founding editor of the literary journal 5 AM.

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Terrance Hayes is the author of Lighthead (Penguin, 2010), which won the National  Book Award for Poetry; Wind in a Box (2006); Hip Hop Logic (2002) which won the National Poetry Series and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award; and Muscular Music (1999), winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. He has received a Whiting Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize, three Best American Poetry selections, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Guggenheim Foundation. He joined the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh as a full professor in 2013, and was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2014. He was the editor of The Best American Poetry 2014 published by Scribner. His new collection of poetry, How to Be Drawn, was published by Penguin in 2015.  

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Through his writing, editing and teaching, Ed Ochester has been a major force on contemporary letters for more than three decades. He edits the Pitt Poetry Series and is general editor of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize for short fiction, both published by the University of Pittsburgh Press . From 1978 to 1998 he was director of the Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh , and was twice elected president of the Associated Writing Programs. He co-edited the poetry magazine 5AM, and lives in a rural county northeast of Pittsburgh . His recent books include Snow White Horses: Selected Poems 1973-1988 (Autumn House Press, 2001), American Poetry Now: Pitt Poetry Series Anthology ( University of Pittsburgh Press , 2007),Unreconstructed: Poems Selected and New(Autumn House Press, 2007) and Sugar Run Road (Autumn House Press, 2015). Poems just published or forthcoming in: American Poetry Review, Agni, Chiron Review, Great River Review andNerve Cowboy.

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Jimmy Cvetic has been writing and performing poetry all his life. A retired county police officer, he is director of the Pittsburgh Police Athletic League, and founder and director of the Summer Poetry Series at Hemingway's Cafe in Oakland .  His poems have appeared in the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette, City Paper and other publications.  He appears in the film, Warrior, and in 2012, he read his poetry at Beyond Baroque in Venice , CA with his actor-friend and poet, Nick Nolte.  In 2010, Jimmy's book of poetry, The Secret Society of Dog was published by Awesome Books/Lascaux Editions, and a second volume, Dog Unleashed, was also published by Awesome Books in 2012.  Jimmy, his boxing gym and trainers were recently featured in the Esquire cable TV show, “White Collar Brawlers.”

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Open Mic

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