4/9/03

CONTACT:
Margie Yu
Public Affairs Spec.
(323) 343-3047

Award-winning Poet
to Read at
Cal State L.A.’s Series

What & Who:
California State University, Los Angeles will present a reading by award-winning poet Harryette Mullen at its Annual Jean Burden Poetry Series.

When:
Tuesday, May 6, 2003, 6:30 p.m.
A reception and book signing will follow the reading.

Where:
Cal State L.A. University-Student Union, Alumni Lounge. The University is located at the Eastern Ave. exit, San Bernardino (I-10) Fwy., at the interchange of the 10 and 710 Fwys. Public permit dispenser parking is available in Lots C and G, or the top level of Parking Structure II.

Mullen:
Harryette Mullen’s latest book, Sleeping With the Dictionary, has been nominated for three major awards this year: The National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and now the L.A. Times Literary Award. Born in Alabama, Mullen grew up in Texas, and has lived in New Mexico, New York, and California. She has earned degrees in English and in Literature from the University of Texas, Austin, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. She currently teaches African American literature, American poetry, and creative writing courses at UCLA. Her fourth book of poetry, Muse & Drudge, was characterized by Publisher’s Weekly as “a series of terse, wacky quatrains which barnstormed through plangent blues to ‘rhime rich’ rap.” Publisher’s Weekly continues, “Mullen’s fifth book [Sleeping With the Dictionary] is no less unconventional,” containing “more diverse prose poems, exhaustive alphabetical language-salads..., surrealistic odes to her erotic other, Oulipian word-replacement poems, short stories that recall the quasi-fantastic realism of John Yau and strange rewrites of classics...”

Burden:
The annual poetry readings were established at Cal State L.A. in 1986 to honor Altadenan Jean Burden for her influence as a poet, essayist, anthologist, teacher and editor, and for her long-standing support of poetry on the Cal State L.A. campus. In addition to poetry, Burden has published a book of essays, Journey Toward Poetry, and articles and books on topics ranging from animal welfare to Oriental religion. Burden was poetry editor of Yankee magazine for more than 40 years.

Info:
Free to the public. For more information on the lecture, call the Department of English at Cal State L.A., (323) 343-4140.

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