“Alphabets of Creation: Libraries, Mysticism, Poetics”

How might archives give rise to art? Is obsession with the letter a threat to spirit? When does the lamp shed light on life, and when does it simply make learning stink? In a playful and probing presentation, poet and translator Peter Cole will explore the role of language, libraries, and mystical linkage in the process of poetic creation.

Peter Cole has been called an “inspired writer” (The Nation) and “one of the most vital poets of his generation” (Harold Bloom). He is the author of four books of poetry. Cole’s translation from Hebrew and Arabic, The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain, c. 950-1492, received the National Jewish Book Award and the American Publishers Association’s Award for Book of the Year. He has received numerous honors for his work, including a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and the PEN Translation Prize. In 2007 he was named a MacArthur fellow. Born in Paterson, New Jersey, Cole now divides his time between Jerusalem and New Haven, where he tends small gardens that fill his poetry.

Wednesday, October 21

Lecture
5:30-6:30PM
Gould Auditorium, Level 1
J. Willard Marriott Library
The University of Utah

Reception, book signing, and Rare Books presentation
6:30-8PM
Special Collections Gallery & Rare Books Classroom, Level 4
J. Willard Marriott Library
The University of Utah

Free and open to the public.

These pieces and others from our rare book collections helped inspire Peter. How will they inspire you?

THE EPISTLES OF JACOB BEHMEN
Jakob Böhme (1575-1624)
London: Printed by M. Simmons, for G. Calvert, 1649
BV5080 B6 1649

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SEFER OTIYOT SHEL RABI AKIBA
BM517 O8 1708

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OF THE JUST SHAPING OF LETTERS
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)
New York: Grolier Club, 1917
NK3615 D7313 1917

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ALEF BET
Miryam Barṭov
Tel-Aviv: Sinai, 1958
PZ90 H3 B323 1958

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THE ALPHABET OF CREATION: AN ANCIENT LEGEND FROM THE ZOHAR
Seattle: Tabula Rasa Press, 1993
N7433.3 A46 1993

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ONE-HANDED BASKET WEAVING
Jelaluddin Rumi
Berkeley: Quelquefois Press, 1993
PK6480 A21 1993