Buffalo Area Poetry & Literature Calendar (week of May 26-June 1)
Wednesday, 9 p.m.: Poetry Night at Caffe Aroma, biweekly open mic reading series hosted by Ben Brindise and Justin Karcher. Special guest performers for this event are members of the Pure Ink Poetry Slam team—Brandon Williamson, Yamilla Tate, Jheanelle Kerr, Dallas Taylor, and J.B. Stone—as they fund-raise, rehearse, and prepare for their appearance in the 32nd Annual Southern Fried Poetry Slam Festival in Pompano Beach, FL in mid-June. 957 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo. Free and open to the public. Donations to the Pure Ink Poetry Slam Team accepted.
Thursday, 7 p.m.: Buffalo, Books & Beer presents Tim Wendel, author of the Civil War-era thriller Rebel Falls, published on May 15 by Cornell University Press.
An award-winning author and Niagara County-native, Wendel will discuss his new historical novel with relevance for our contemporary polarized era. Wendel takes readers to the summer of 1864, as the fate of the nation “conceived in Liberty” hangs in the balance, a time when Confederate agents gather in Niagara Falls to plan one last audacious maneuver to turn the tide of the conflict. He introduces us to Rory Chase, a capable yet haunted young woman eager to contribute to the Union cause, who finds her mission involves infiltrating a Rebel spy network in the shadow of the Falls. Rory’s quest to foil the Confederate plot makes for a riveting page-turner.
Wendel is a Writer-in-Residence at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Summer of ’68, Cancer Crossings, High Heat, and the historical novels, Castro’s Curveball and its sequel Escape from Castro’s Cuba. He has appeared on PBS, CNN, ESPN, and NPR, and is the narrator of several audiobooks. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Copies of Rebel Falls will be available for sale at the event by Talking Leaves Books, Buffalo’s premier independent bookstore, which is also a co-sponsor of the event.
The Place, 229 Lexington Ave., Buffalo.
Thursday, 7 p.m.: I AM HERE YOU ARE NOT I LOVE YOU: A Work-in-Progress Screening of a short documentary film accompanying a book of the same name, forthcoming from the University of Iowa Press in spring 2025. Together, the book and film aim to reintroduce and reposition the late visual artists Andrew Topolski and Cindy Suffoletto through the eyes and voice of their nephew and godson, the writer Aidan Ryan. This work-in-progress film screening will include a Q&A with filmmakers Aidan Ryan and Mark Anthony Dellas.
Project Background: Born in Buffalo, Topolski and Suffoletto left for New York City in 1985, carried on the same current as more famous names—like Cindy Sherman and Robert Longo—their friends, neighbors, and sometimes-rivals back in Buffalo. All were members of a celebrated generation of artists who made their mark on Buffalo, but shortly left for SoHo and the burgeoning Brooklyn of the mid-1980s and early ’90s seeking greater access to opportunities. Topolski died suddenly in 2008, on the cusp of a radical reinvention of his artistic practice. Suffoletto died—just as unexpectedly—four years later.
A mysterious package arrived in Topolski and Suffoletto's godson Aidan Ryan's possession in February 2020. From an unknown sender, it contained images of Suffoletto and Topolski in Paris in the early '90s—a little-known chapter in their lives as artists and partners. It set their nephew on a path of exploration, seeking to uncover more of his late aunt's and uncle's lives, starting with the clues they left behind in their art. Ryan’s journey illuminates a critical period in late-twentieth-century art as he follows his aunt's and uncle’s path through the orbits of Longo and Sherman, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mary Boone, Richard Serra, Wynn Kramarsky, and many others from avant-garde of Buffalo in the 1970s and the cutthroat competition of SoHo in the megagallery era.
On one level, I Am Here You Are Not I Love You presents a critical reexamination of the artist Andrew Topolski, one of the greatest practitioners of postminimalism and a figure that advocates have long positioned for canonical recognition. In repositioning Topolski’s legacy and vast body of work, the book makes compelling findings—relevant for artists in any medium—about the critical role of timing, networking, and institutional as well as interpersonal support in the making and breaking of artistic careers. At the same time, the project uncovers and presents a significant body of work by Suffoletto, little-shown and never cataloged during her life. Ultimately, Ryan argues that the time is right for both to take up a privileged place among the great artists of their generation.
Aidan Ryan is a writer, publisher, and multidisciplinary arts curator from Buffalo, New York. He has published memoir and cultural criticism in Public Books, The Millions, The Adroit Journal, Colorado Review, The White Review, CNN International, Irish America, the NEH's Humanities, and Traffic East, where he is a senior editor. Alongside his own writing, Aidan is a cofounder and publisher of Foundlings Press, which has produced books, chapbooks, anthologies, broadsides, and archival works by new and established authors such as Forrest Gander, C.D. Wright, D.A. Powell, Mary Ruefle, Frank Stanford, and many others. At Foundlings, Aidan joined Max Crinnin as co-editor of Constant Stranger: After Frank Stanford (2018), a seminal anthology celebrated as a groundbreaking contribution to the study and discussion of Frank Stanford's poetry.
Mark Anthony Dellas is a cinematographer, editor, and post production specialist with experience on a variety of short and long-form film and television programs. He started his career serving several years as a digital intermediate engineer at Harbor Picture Company in NYC, where he gained experience in multiple post production platforms. He built and maintained world-class edit, color, finishing, and storage systems on countless projects, including Jim Jarmusch's documentary Gimme Danger and Spike Lee's documentary Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall. For the last seven years, he has worked in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where his skill set has expanded to include cinematography, gimbal camera operation, and creative editing. He's now worked on over 30 feature films, commercial productions, and independent shorts. He served as an assistant camera on Ken Burns's The American Buffalo, and he served as Cinematographer on First We Bombed New Mexico, an award-winning independent feature documentary about the tragic "down wind" effects of the Trinity Bomb on Native and New Mexican communities throughout New Mexico. Most recently, he spent three years working on an upcoming documentary detailing the life and art of Georgia O'Keeffe. He contributed cinematography, and served as editor with writer-director Paul Wagner. He continues to follow his passion for storytelling from his hometown of Buffalo, NY.
Hallwalls Cinema, 341 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo. Free and open to the public.
Saturday, 3:30 p.m.- 4:00 p.m.: Queer Poetry Collective Readings as part of Intersect: A Queer Arts Festival at 26 Allen Street (at North Pearl St.) in Buffalo. Free and open to the public.