Jane Huffman Reads Public Abstract, October 30th, 2024
an evening of poetry and companionship at Green College in Vancouver and via Livestream
Hi Friends,
It’s a pleasure to welcome
as our first reader for this year’s Whole Cloth Reading Series. Jane will join us to read her book Public Abstract cover-to-cover in the congenial atmosphere of the Green College Coach House. Thanks to the generosity of Green College, we’ll be able to provide several copies for audience members to follow along on the page and take home after the event. We look forward to sharing an evening exploring poetry’s capacity of sound and form to hold extremities of anguish and bodily mystery with you.October 30, 2024
5 - 6:30 pm
Coach House, Green College, University of British Columbia
and via Livestream (link to come!)
Please note that the in-person reading will be a masked event, and masks will be available at the door. We also plan to run air purifiers and keep the windows open if weather permits.
The Reader: Jane Huffman
Jane Huffman’s debut collection, Public Abstract, won the 2023 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize. Jane is a doctoral student in poetry at the University of Denver and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, and elsewhere. She was a 2019 recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. Online at www.janehuffman.com
The Book: Public Abstract
Winner of the 2023 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, Jane Huffman’s intricate debut collection, Public Abstract, examines illness and recovery, loss and addiction: the ripples of influence an addict has on their family circle, and vice versa. We watch as a private mind, devoted to its privacy, is laid out on the page and abstracted to become a public revelation. Building an aesthetic of compressed interiority, the speaker’s tension is clear—“From one lung, I tell the truth. / From the other lung, I lie.” Through intimate and meticulous poems, Public Abstract explores the operations of form, sewn together, and the failings of form, ripped apart. Crumbling under its own weight and folderol, form becomes an act of invention and in Huffman’s expert hands, revision becomes a genre.
The Event: The Whole Cloth Reading Series
An experience in deep listening, each Whole Cloth Reading Series event features a single poet who reads an entire book of poems from cover to cover. While poets devote immense craft to shaping a book, public readings tend to favor selections and excerpts. Uniting writer and audience in a celebration of expansive and unhurried attention, this series creates a rare environment for the investigation of poetry, sound, delivery and reciprocity. Each event features a transformative (short!) book and concludes in time for a cordial reception and conversation.
A Dinner Invitation
The Green College Dining Society invites event attendees to stay on for dinner to continue the conversation in the dining hall next door to the Coach House. Meal tickets are available for $25 for non-students and $20 for students and must be reserved by noon the previous day (October 29th) using this Google form. Each meal includes meat and vegetarian options, and most dietary preferences can be accommodated.
The UBC School of Creative Writing is providing several fully subsidized tickets for UBC students for each event. If you’re a UBC creative writing student, sign up here to receive an email inviting you to express interest.
Upcoming Events in the Series
Warm best from your hosts,
Bronwen Tate and Elee Kraljii Gardiner