Two nights of fiction, poetry await Plutzik fans

Saunders

Readings by George Saunders, a former Rochester resident, and University poet James Longenbach will launch the 1998-99 Hyam Plutzik Memorial Poetry Series.

Saunders' first book drew acclaim from such luminaries as Thomas Pynchon and Tobias Wolff. A geophysicist who explored for oil in Sumatra, played guitar in a Texas bar band, and worked in a slaughterhouse, Saunders paints a surreal near-future in that book, a collection of short stories titled CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. His vision of a world of see-through cows, mutants, and bad theme parks, evolved logically from current culture, has earned him comparison to such satirists as Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift.

Saunders will appear at 8 p.m. Thursday, October 15 in the Welles-Brown Room of Rush Rhees Library.

Described as "an astoundingly tuned voice" by Pynchon and as a "writer of arresting brilliance and originality" by Wolff, Saunders now lives in Syracuse and teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Harpers, Story, and other publications. He has won the National Magazine Award twice.

Longenbach

Longenbach, the author of several highly regarded critical works on modern poetry, will read from his own recently published first collection of poems as the series continues Thursday, October 29. His reading will be given at 8 p.m. in the Welles-Brown Room of Rush Rhees Library.

Longenbach is the Joseph Henry Gilmore Professor of English. His poems have appeared in many magazines and journals, including The New Republic, The Nation, The Yale Review, and The Best American Poetry 1995. This fall the University of Chicago Press has published his first collection, Threshold, as part of the Phoenix Poets series.

Threshold explores changes in perception and rediscovery of the mundane. Said poet laureate Robert Pinsky of the work: "James Longenbach's Threshold stands out among first books of poetry for its intelligence and thematic coherence: This is a book about fear, particularly the fear that outside of a charmed circle of normality disaster waits. The subject is treated without melodrama on one side or complacency on the other."

Longenbach's research in modern literature has produced four books of literary criticism, most recently Modern Poetry After Modernism. He also has written numerous articles and reviews for such publications as Southwest Review, New York Times Book Review, The Nation, and The Yale Review.

The Plutzik Series, one of the country's oldest and most prestigious literary reading programs, was established in 1962 to honor the work of Hyam Plutzik, a distinguished poet and Deane Professor of Poetry and Rhetoric at the University. Admission to both readings is free.