In her "Composition as Explanation" Gertrude Stein writes of "recurrence" as opposed to "repetition", as well as the circumstance in language of "beginning again and again". In this talk and reading Leonard Schwartz will speak about his own writing practice, especially in his books IF and Flacofolio in this context, as well as in relationship to the structures of juxtaposition and montage. The micro-essay is a form that allows for both distillation and range.

Leonard Schwartz is the author of numerous books of poetry, including, most recently, Flacofolio (with artist Heide Hatry), Actualities I: Transparent, to the Stone, Actualities II and III: Two Burned Hotels, and Actualities IV/V Comic Earth (2021, 2022, 2023, Goats & Compasses). Heavy Sublimation (Talisman House, 2018) and Salamander: A Bestiary (Chax Press, 2017), with painter Simon Carr, are also out and about. His work in poetics The New Babel: Toward a Poetics of the Mid-East Crises (University of Arkansas Press, 2016), is inclusive of poetry, essays, and interviews. Other titles include If (Talisman House, 2012), and At Element (2011), which explore the idea of an eco-poetics, as well as The Library of Seven Readings (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2008). He edited and co-translated Benjamin Fondane’s Cine-Poems and Other, with New York Review Books. From 2003 to 2018 he produced and hosted the radio program Cross Cultural Poetics.