[New York, NY]

SLOT by Jill Magi: Reading and Reception
October 11, 2011, 6:30 pm
at Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Project Space

Join Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Ugly Duckling Presse to celebrate the publication of SLOT by writer, poet and visual artist, Jill Magi. An experiential investigation of how we move through cultural landmarks and institutions, SLOT presents a lyrical and thinking response to official, landscaped memory. In the book, a person slips in and out of highly designed museums and memorials, looks for a mentor who is more than a tour guide, rebels during the official tour, and occasionally finds the lament she is looking for: in comparisons across history, in ambiguous photo sequences, and in poetry. The resulting text stages a quiet argument between the persistent urge to "slot" things—into narratives, frames, archives—and a clear view of what, by resisting, remains. A short reading of selected passages from the book by Joanna Sondheim, Johannah Rogers and Jill Magi will be followed by a reception. The book and a special, limited edition broadside will be available for purchase. Jill Magi is the author of Cadastral Map (forthcoming, Shearsman), Torchwood (Shearsman), Threads (Futurepoem), as well as the chapbooks Die for love, furlough (In Edit Mode Press), Confidence and Autonomy (Ink Press), Poetry Barn Barn! (2nd Avenue), Cadastral Map (Portable Press), and numerous small, handmade books. Her essays have been anthologized in The Eco-Language Reader (Portable Press/Nightboat Books) and Letters to Poets (Saturnalia Books), and visual works have been exhibited at the Textile Arts Center, the Brooklyn Arts Council, apexart, and Pace University. In 2011, she was an artist-in-residence at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, and she was a writer-in-residence with Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in 2006-07. Jill runs Sona Books, a chapbook press, and for her small press work she was recognized by Poets & Writers magazine as among the 50 most inspiring authors in 2010. This is the closing event of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's InSite: Art + Commemoration, a program that honors the ten-year anniversary of 9/11 by inviting artistic response to a decade of recovery and change in Lower Manhattan and beyond through exhibitions, performances, poetry, and ideas. Event is free, but RSVP is required