The New/reNEW Series

From 1975 to 1990, the Niagara-Erie Writers played a key role in the growth of the local literary community.

NEW (as it was known) brought several hundred writers from widely disparate backgrounds (i.e., urban and rural, tenured academics, labor movement activists, feminists and environmentalists) together in an organization that sponsored readings, workshops, and a monthly "NEWsletter. That publication, edited by the late Robin Willoughby, was the definitive source of literary news and information for poets and writers across the region.

NEW's demise was not a result of declining membership or internal dissension.  Instead, it was the victim of a kind of paradigm shift in public funding for the arts.  With little earned revenue or corporate sponsorship, NEW was unable to adapt to changing criteria for how groups applying for public support were evaluated.

Beginning next month, a new reading series organized by former NEW program coordinator Ryki Zuckerman and sponsored by Just Buffalo Literary Center pays tribute to NEW's legacy.  The "New/reNEW Series" will bring together poets and writers associated with the former Niagara-Erie Writers with promising "new voices" emerging from the community.

The initial reading at 7 p.m. on Sept. 20 at Impact Artists' Gallery (Suite 545) in the Tri-Main Center, 2495 Main St., Buffalo, will feature poet Michael Basinski, a former executive director of NEW who is now curator of the poetry collection of the University Libraries at the University of Buffalo.  The widely published Basinski's improvisational text and sound-based performances are like archaeological digs through the deep structure of language.  You never know what linguistic treasures he might unearth amid the ruins.

Reading with Basinski will be Karlen Chase, a self described "serial laborer and recovering vagabond" with a MFA in creative writing from the University of Vermont,  who returned to New York from a stint out west with an award-winning chapbook of poems entitled Spreading Stars to enter the master of library sciences at UB.

For information about future events in the New/reNEW Series visit justbuffalo.org.

Comments

[s. m. hutton]

Yes, thanks! I'd also like to thank Bob Pohl for this site, and his long work with the News. His long-time commitment to and high quality of contributions to the Buffalo literary community nicely augment the other available venues and discursive sources.

[Lisa Forrest]

Sounds like another great series...Thanks for all the good work you do Ryki!