Book Markers 02.16.12

Poets Pack a Gallery

    It’s billed as a Valentine’s Day reading of poems — but loosely. The day, Saturday, is after the fact, and the definition of a love poem has been expanded to include, for example, a love for the world.

    Poetry fans should love the lineup. Among those ready to stand and proclaim at the Romany Kramoris Gallery in Sag Harbor, one, Naomi Lazard, known hereabouts as a founder of the Hamptons International Film Festival, is the author of a recently rereleased collection, “Ordinances,” which knows not of lovely but rather is an at times hair-raising channeling of the voices of the modern bureaucratic state and the faceless corporation.

    Megan Chaskey, a musician and educator, and her husband, Scott Chaskey, of Quail Hill Farm, are also due in the gallery, as is Kathy Engel, an activist and New York University professor whose work not long ago appeared in “Liberty’s Vigil: The Occupy Anthology.”

    The others, East Enders all, are George Held, Jean Ely, Brenda Simmons, Maria Burns, and Jill Morris. Books will be available, and available for signing, and refreshments will be served. Put together by Clare Coss, a playwright and poet herself, the reading starts at 1:30 p.m.

From Rucker to Rowdy

    Science fiction readers, it’s not too late to grab a copy of Rudy Rucker’s “Spaceland” in advance of the inaugural gathering of a new book club at the East Hampton Library on Wednesday at 6 p.m.

    Subtitled “A Novel of the Fourth Dimension,” it follows the evocatively named Joe Cube just before the turn of the 21st century. He’s a techie in Silicon Valley — the species and the place both get sent up — and the machine he’s researching sets off, shall we say, all manner of weirdness. Copies are at the reference desk.

    It may be too late to read for today’s lunchtime book club gathering at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton, but given the title, “Smut,” you might just want to sit in and listen.

    (Actually, what’s in Alan Bennett’s book are two stories of middle-class women leading double lives in England.)

    The Rowdy Readers will meet at 12:15 each Thursday through March 22 and can help themselves to a 15-percent discount on the titles at BookHampton. Next up is Sara Levine’s novel “Treasure Island!!!” Also on the list: “Mr. g” by Alan Lightman, “The Coral Sea” by Patti Smith, “Jackson Pollock” by Evelyn Toynton, and “Ragnarok” by A.S. Byatt.