Double Feature: KEN FONTENOT and JOE AHEARN
Ken’s been a regular reader at our events and we’re really excited to get a chance to hear a full set from this wonderful poet. Ken Fontenot has an M. A. in German Language and Literature from UT Austin and has taught German and Introduction to Humanities at ACC. Having published two books of poems, the second of which, All My Animals and Stars, won the 1988 Austin Book Award, his poems and translations of poems from the German have appeared in such journals as the American Poetry Review , Kenyon Review, Georgia Review, Poetry International, and the New Orleans Review. He has been poetry editor of two literary magazines in New Orleans and most recently, in 2006, edited Di-verse-city, the annual poetry anthology of the Austin International Poetry Festival. Presently he is taking time off from coursework at Texas State’s MFA program in San Marcos in order to get more of his own poetry-writing done.
Joe Ahearn is the author of Five Fictions (poetry, Sulphur River Review Press) and sin-thét-ik (poetry, Firewheel Editions Press). He has recently published poetry and essays in Sentence, Flashpoint and the Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry. Fiction is forthcoming in the Sonora Review. Ahearn currently holds a James A. Michener Fellowship in poetry and fiction at the University of Texas at Austin. We at RIOT Ink had had the pleasure of reading and hearing Joe’s work before. Joe Ahearn in his essay “The Freedom Principle: First Notes Towards a Poetics of Liberation” says “the first purpise of the liberated poem is to provide exactly what is lacking in general culture, a zone of real emotion…” This was one of my first impressions upon reading his book, FIve FIctions. The language in it is not only exciting and crafted, it is genuinely moving. There is an integrity and honesty in his verses, true poignancy that is not always comfortable by undeniably beautiful. The stories these poems tell are distinctly humane and have a reverence for the sublimity of human experience. His poetry is charged, not only emotionally, but stylistically and intellectually as well. The tone is at once familiar and rarified. We’re happy to have him back on our stage.
Come out for an evening of some fine poetry!
(All you need to know):
When: Thursday August 28th, 7-8:30
Where: Austin Java Coffeehouse, 1206 Parkway (12th and Lamar)
What: A RIOT Ink poetry event featuring
Ken Fontenot and Joe Ahearn
*****
Also coming up, for our finale reading:
author of Heaven, Oh Forbidden, Harlot and Necropolis
Jill Alexander Essbaum
