The Word Works announces the forthcoming publication in 2022 of Appreciating Tender Buttons: An Invitation to Play Volume I of III with poems by Karren Alenier and 36 other poets.
The purpose of this set of books in response to Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons is to establish a creative resource to make Stein’s Tender Buttons more accessible. Volume I addresses “Objects,” Section I of Tender Buttons.
Tender Buttons, published in 1914, was a one-of-a-kind work
by Gertrude Stein. It is a book-length poem divided in three
sections—OBJECTS, FOOD, ROOMS—and may be a love poem and the marriage
contract between Gertrude Stein and her life-long partner Alice Babette
Toklas. If so, the agreement was that, as a clandestine married couple,
their offspring would be books conceived by Stein. This is one way of
looking at Tender Buttons.
The format of Appreciating Tender Buttons Volume I is that each of the 58 subpoems of “Objects”
has a response poem written by Karren Alenier or one of 36 poets who
were invited to participate. Leading the invitation to play, Karren
Alenier has contributed over 1/3 of the poems in this volume. Two
appendices written by Alenier offer ways to enter Stein’s most
mysterious poem and to invoke the Steinian muse. This collection is a
study in the creative impulse.
Who is in this collection?
Poets, teachers, or students of Professor Al Filreis’ popular Modern
and Contemporary American Poetry course known as ModPo included in this
collection are: Indran Amirthanayagam, Rae Armantrout, Mary Armour,
Carrie Bennett, Margo Berdeshevsky, Julien Berman, Andrea Carter Brown,
Susana Case, Grace Cavalieri, Nikia Chaney, Roberto Christiano, Henry
Crawford, Michael Davis, Denise Duhamel, Amy Feinstein, Barbara
Goldberg, Harold M. Greenwald, Don Illich, Jacqueline Johnson, Hiram
Larew, JoAnne McFarland, Kevin McLellan, Nils Michals, Brad Richard,
Margery M. Ross, Martha Sanchez Lowery, Roger Sedarat, Lisa Sewell, Margo
Stever, Miles Waggener, Lillo Way, Nancy White, Carolyne Wright, Bill
Yarrow, Burgi Zenhaeusern, and Jason Zuzga.
In early 2022, Alenier will issue a call for poets interested in responding to the subpoems of Tender Buttons, Section II Food. As
with Volume I, participants will get a random assignment as the
inspiration for their poems and also be asked to write a paragraph about
their processes for these poems.
Founded
in 1974, The Word Works is a literary nonprofit organization publishing
contemporary poetry and producing public programs to support the life
and love of poetry. The three volumes of Appreciating Tender Buttons will be part of a new Word Works educational imprint.
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