News from New York State Writers Institute

For more information contact: Suzanne Lance, 518-442-5620

NYS Writers Institute Event with Poet Geoffrey Young and Visual Artist James Siena

ALBANY, NY (08/22/2007; 1123)(readMedia)-- Poet Geoffrey Young and Abstract Visual Artist James Siena To Discuss Interplay Between Word and Image In Collaborative Works, September 5, 2007

Poet Geoffrey Young and abstract visual artist James Siena will discuss the interplay between word and image in their collaborative publication “Pockets of Wheat” (1996, reissued 2007) on Wednesday, September 5, 2007 at 7:00 p.m. in the University Art Museum, Fine Arts Building, on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. The free event is sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and the University Art Museum in association with the exhibit “James Siena: BIG FAST INK: Drawings, 1996-2007,” July 12 – September 30, 2007.

Geoffrey Young, poet, and James Siena, visual artist, will discuss the interplay between word and image in their collaborative publication “Pockets of Wheat” (1996, reissued 2007), featuring poems by Young and black-and-white abstractions by Siena. The University Art Museum’s current exhibition, “James Siena: BIG FAST INK: Drawings, 1996-2007” (curated by Geoffrey Young), includes Siena’s drawings from “Pockets of Wheat.” The exhibit runs July 12 through September 30, 2007.

Geoffrey Young’s most recent poetry collection is “Lights Out” (2004), which also features illustrations by James Siena. The reviewer for “Publishers Weekly” said, “Young has long been a fringe figure amid the Language Poets and the neo-New York School poets... and this impressive compendium of recent work might put him right at the center.” The independent cultural magazine, “The Brooklyn Rail,” said, “The rapport between Siena and Young is akin to musicians communicating through their instruments. They bring to the reader not something better than they could solo, but something different: Together Young and Siena have created a tapestry that dovetails and diverges but never loses the common thread....”

Young is also publisher of The Figures Press—one of the oldest small presses in the country—and owner of the Geoffrey Young Gallery, both in Great Barrington, MA. His other books of poetry include “Fickle Sonnets” (2005), “Cerulean Embankments” (1999), “Admiral Fever” (1997), and “Rocks and Deals” (1987).

James Siena is considered one of the leading abstract expressionists presently at work. Inspired by a range of disparate sources—patterns, algorithms, puzzle-like geometries—his paintings and drawings are constructed almost entirely by hand-drawn line. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including the 2004 Whitney Biennial. He is the recipient of awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, and The New York Foundation for the Arts.

BIG FAST INK will feature 10 never-before shown drawings from “Pockets of Wheat” alongside more recent work by James Siena. The large-scale drawings were made eleven years ago to accompany Geoffrey Young’s poems for the book. They were bought soon after the book’s publication in 1996, by collector A. G. Rosen, and have not been shown previously.

For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.

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Attachments

Poet Geoffrey Young

James Siena, "Crooked Lattice," 2005