Fall for the Book welcomes to this year’s festival two leading names from the first generation of “language poets,” Ron Silliman and Rae Armantrout. Language poets are a group of avant garde writers credited with introducing postmodern approaches to the art of poetry.

Rae Armantrout

One of the earliest proponents of language poetry, Silliman recently published a work more than 25 years in the making, The Alphabet, the latest of his 26 collections of poetry and criticism. In addition to his own writings, Silliman edited the influential newsletter Tottel’s, which provided an important foundational venue for experimental poets, and his website, Silliman’s Blog, stands today as one of the most important and influential blogs on contemporary poetics. Another of the early language poets, Armantrout is now a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and the author of ten collections of poetry, the most recent of which, Versed, was released earlier this year. Like Silliman, Armantrout has been active in serving the poetry community. Each helped to curate an important venue for contemporary poets, the Grand Piano reading series in San Francisco, and the two authors are currently working on the ongoing project The Grand Piano: An Experiment In Collective Autobiography, being published in several volumes.  

Silliman and Armantrout will read from and discuss their work on Wednesday, September 23, at 8 p.m. in the Student Union Building II on George Mason University’s University’s Fairfax, Virginia Campus.

In addition to Silliman and Armantrout, Fall for the Book has recently added several more poets, including:

• James Galvin, author of six collections, including X: Poems, and two books of prose
• Jeffrey Harrison, whose first book, The Singing Undeneath, was selected by James Merrill for the National Poetry Series and whose latest collection is Incomplete Knowledge
• Terrance Hayes, author of the award-winning collections Muscular Music and Hip Logic, the latter also selected for the National Poetry Series, and of the recent book, Wind in a Box
• Khaled Mattawa, an Arab-American poet, translator and anthologist whose latest collection is Amorisco
• Georgia Me, a spoken word artist and Def Poetry Jam favorite leading this year’s Poetry Slam
• Chris Nealon, author of two collections, The Joyous Age and Plummet 
  
• Nancy Pearson, whose first collection, Two Minutes of Light, won the 2009 L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award
• Ellen Posner, a Fairfax, Virginia attorney who recently celebrated her debut collection, What’s in a Feather?, and who will host this year’s open mike poetry reading
• and Dan Vera, author of The Space Between Our Danger and Delight.

Four other poets were previously announced for this year’s festival: Deborah Ager, Scott Cairns, Charles Jensen and Brian Teare. And even more writers across a wider range of genres are already listed at the FFTB website with more participants added each week. Please mark your calendars now to attend the full festival, taking place September 21-26 at George Mason University and at locations throughout Northern Virginia, D.C and Maryland.