A native California writer, Joanne Kyger is the author of more than 20 books of poetry.  She is known for her ties to the poets of Black Mountain College, the San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beat Generation.  Her most recent books are About Now: Collected Poems, 1957-2004 (National Poetry Foundation, 2007) and Not Veracruz (Libellum Press, 2007).  She taught for many years at Naropa University’s poetics program, and The New College of San Francisco.  She lives on the coast north of San Francisco.

The Beat Generation Symposium was a two-day conference devoted to the literary and cultural legacy of the Beat Generation. Sponsored by Columbia College Chicago’s English Department and Office of the Provost, in conjunction with the Beat Studies Association, an international organization that fosters scholarship on Beat Generation literature and art; Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media; and the Illinois State University Department of English and College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Also recorded as part of this event:
Aesthetics and Spirit of Avant-Garde Practice
Poetry Reading by Joanne Kyger
Memoir Reading by Elizabeth Von Vogt
Beat Reception and Recovery, Assessing the Critics and the Historians
Poetry Reading by Michael McClure

Recorded Friday, October 10, 2008 at Columbia College Film Row Cinema.