4 Poets & Dave

ADAM ART GALLERY
WEDNESDAY 13 APRIL 7 PM

4 POETS
& DAVE

POETRY AND FICTION
FROM THE IOWA WRITERS'
WORKSHOP VIA VICTORIA

ALAN FELSENTHAL
ALICE MILLER
DAVID FLEMING
LEE POSNA
THERESE LLOYD

Unfortunately I'll be stuck up here in Auckland and won't be able to make it, but for any of you who are in Wellington, I'd really recommend this reading.

I understand that Bill Manhire will be kicking off the intros, after which we'll go into the four poets and one fiction writer.

Alice Miller won the Landfall essay competition a couple of years ago, and I believe she's won the Katherine Mansfield short story competition too, which is a pretty impressive achievement. She's clearly as much at home in the realm of prose as that of poetry.

Thérèse Loyd was her successor as the winner of the IIML fellowship in Iowa. She is (in my opinion) a fantastic poet and performer. She's also my sister-in-law, but my admiration for her work did long predate the family involvement, I assure you. Any of you who want to follow up on her work will find a selection in New New Zealand Poets in Performance (AUP, 2008).

Her husband, Lee, also a very fine poet, is one of my favourite people on this planet - a truly gentle and dedicated soul. Lee and Thérèse met at Iowa, and it'd be great to hear them reading together again (I hosted a reading at Massey a couple of years ago with Lee, Thérèse, Sarah Broom, Michael Steven and Jen Crawford - a pretty stellar line-up, in retrospect), so I have some idea what it may be like.

I don't know the other two readers, so I can't comment on their work, but I'm sure they're of equal calibre. Any of you who know more might like to write in and tell us about it.

And, for any of you who don't know, the Adam Art Gallery is right in the quad at Victoria University. Yes, it's that one surrounded by rubble and construction equipment -- still open for business, though.

Good luck to all, then! I'm sure it will be a great occasion (and good on you Bill for continuing to lend your support to such events ...)