Monday, June 11, 2007 at 7 PM


An evening with San Francisco /Noe Valley poet Stephen Vincent on Monday June 11th at 7 p.m. at the Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez Street.
Stephen will be reading from his new book, "Walking Theory," published by Junction Press. His work is highly acclaimed by poets and other writers including Beverly Dahlen, Ron Silliman and Bill Berkson.
Stephen is a well-respected writing teacher who has led writing/guided tours locally and in New York. He was a founding coordinator of California's Poetry-in-the- Schools Program, a lecturer at the S. F. Art Institute, and publisher of Momo Press amongst other publishing activities. Currently he is a professor of creative writing at the Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning. In this particular book, he has given voice to the writer and the walker of our very neighborhoods in a most inventive way.
Consider joining us for a no-host pizza/salad or other entree dinner ($12-15), 5:30 p.m. at the Noe Valley Pizza Restaurant, northeast corner of 24th and Sanchez Streets. Please email or RSVP for dinner only at jlsender@webtv.net
Parking at the parking lot on 24th between Sanchez and Vicksburg is available at $5 for 6 hours.

The Odd Monday Series is a project of The Noe Valley Ministry

A Review and Some Advance Comments on Walking Theory:
... these are the poems Stephen Vincent has been preparing to write his entire life. They definitely pass the “take the top of your head off” test. I went cover to cover without even sitting up. Ron Silliman, Silliman’s Blog, http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/ Go down to May 15, 2007
At long last is Walking Theory, Stephen Vincent’s observant, large-hearted poems bundled into book form, engaging architecture, people on the move, the seasons and other transience, the talk that binds the day: Goodbye, rhetoric, the desperate,/what can the poem do, walking, step-by-step:/ witness, suffer, hope. Urbane and companionable, rare virtues flaunted here, curbside delight. Bill Berkson
Stephen Vincent's work here preserves and enhances the ancient association of the foot as measure of the poetic line. In Walking Theory measure becomes metaphor: “...foot ever to the ground, image by image, /thought by thought, word by word...” This is the measure of the continuity of a poet’s life as he moves through the days, from the grief-stricken rhythms of the opening section of elegies to the more expansive tours of the San Francisco neighborhoods where he lives and works. Vincent celebrates the beauty of these familiar landscapes, as well as strange, unexpected and sometimes mundane details. In a wonderful pun that arises in the midst of the naming of spring flowers, “the dotted eye” suggests the I of linguistic convention as the seeing, moving body’s eye transformed by language. Finally, in this serious play of words, the poets asks: “what can the poem do, walking, step-by step:” and credo-like responds: “witness, suffer, hope.” Beverly Dahlen

For more information about Stephen Vincent
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/

Monday June 25th:
Leo Litwak, Noe Valley author, will read from
his short story collection "Nobody's Baby and Other Stories."


click here to go to amazon page and search inside the book


Leo Litwak has published two novels, two books of nonfiction, and articles in publications that include The New York Times Magazne, Esquire, and Tikkun. His novel Waiting for the News received the National Jewish Book Award; his short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories; and "The Eleventh Edition" received first prize in the 1990 O. Henry Prize Stories collection. Professor at San Francisco State University for more than 30 years, Leo Litwak lives in San Francisco.