Study Abroad on the Bowery sprang from a conversation among Anne Waldman, Kristen Prevallet, Alan Gilbert, and Bob Holman at Naropa last summer. Anne was bemoaning the loss of study-abroads in Bali & Bhutan due to international politics. Gilbert joked, “Study Abroad on the Bowery!” “Yes!” leapt Holman, a tiger. Prevallet and Sophie (her 2-year-old daugher) agreed, optimistically.
Like most ideas it sat there, maybe to be done in a year.... But when President of Naropa Tom Coburn visited the Bowery Poetry Club at Anne Waldman’s invitation in September, and he mentioned possible collaboration with NY Open Center, Holman thought we had a shot at this semester.
A deal was struck with Open Center. The brochures were finished in November (Prevallet-designed). Teachers generously signed on. Deanna Zandt, development director of Bowery Arts and Science, got an article in Time Out New York. On January 31, Brenda Coultas taught the first Visiting Writers Conversation to a class of 13 Utopian, committed students.
On February 7, Amiri Baraka spoke about “Knowing Your Local” and his poetry activist work in Newark, Harlem, the Lower East Side, and the U.S. Air Force. He then introduced his wife, poet and activist Amina. What follows is an immediate report from Nathaniel Siegel, who is taking the Monday Visiting Writers Conversations course, on Amina’s performance.
~Bob Holman
