Often
a play by
Barbara Guest & Kevin Killian
First presented December 9, 2000, as one of "Three Plays by Barbara Guest" in an evening at Small Press Traffic at CCAC (San Francisco), OFTEN is, loosely speaking, a sequel to Guest's 1961 play, "Office." Strictly speaking, OFTEN is a clever, lyrical, and humorous text that blurs contexts between social polemic, lyric song, modern comedy, and speculative poetics. Barbara Guest is one of the most celebrated American poets, with over 20 books of poetry published since 1960, the era of the so-called "New York School" of poets which includes John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and James Schuyler. In 1999, Charles Bernstein noted: "Guest is not only an important influence on contemporary American poetry but also someone who is actively creating its present terms and tense." Nowhere is this more apparent than in this most recent, inter-generation collaboration, OFTEN. Kevin Killian, her collaborator, is the author of several books including Argento Series (poetry), Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance (biography / literary criticism / with Lew Ellingham), and Little Men (fiction / winner of the 1996 PEN Oakland / Josephine Miles Award). His work has been widely anthologized, appearing in Best American Poetry 1988 (ed. John Ashbery), Men on Men (ed. Geo. Stambolian), Discontents (ed. Dennis Cooper) Wrestling with the Angel (ed. Brian Bouldrey), and others. Among his many works for the stage is Stone Marmalade, a play written with renowned poet Leslie Scalapino on the Orpheus/Eurydice legend.
Published as Kenning #11 - summer 2001
44 pages - offset - paperback - poetry / drama
ISSN: 1526-3428 - $7.50
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