Free Poetry Reading September 21st 3-6pm

Your Daily Poem - In 2001, poet Jayne Jaudon Ferrer accepted a challenge from her brother and brother-in-law to prove there were poems these decidedly non-poetry fans would actually enjoy reading. Your Daily Poem was born when an insistent group of Poetry Parade subscribers declared thirty days of poetry was not enough. After much pleading, they coerced Jayne into making the Parade a daily, rather than yearly, event. Your Daily Poem launched in June 2009 with a single goal: to share the pleasure and diversity of poetry with those who are dubious of its value. Now she is taking the show on the road and after-words is happy to host ten local poets who will be reading from their work: Mary Jo Balistreri, Albert DeGenova, Gretchen Friel, Jayne Jaudon Ferrer, Caroline Johnson, Janet Leahy, William Marr, Wilda Morris, Susan T. Moss, Christine Swanberg, Richard Swanson.

Get your daily poem: http://www.yourdailypoem.com/

Off Site Event for Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered by Dianne Hales

After-words will be selling books at an off-site event for Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered by Dianne Hales on September 9^th at 6pm.  There will be a discussion led by the author and an opportunity for her to sign books afterwards.  This event is free and open to the public. The Italian Cultural Institute is located at 500 N. Michigan Avenue, 14^th Floor, Suite 1450.

In Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered (Simon & Schuster; August 5, 2014; $28.00), award-winning author Dianne Hales unearth the story of Mona Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, the woman believed to be the model for Leonardo DaVinci’s most famous work. The result is “cultural history that reads like a detective novel” (Ross King, author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Leonardo and the Last Supper) that allows readers “to know the painting in profound news ways” (Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun). An intriguing blend of biography, history, and memoir, Mona Lisa: A Life Discovered takes readers beyond the frame of Leonardo’s masterpiece and introduces them to the woman behind the smile. A recent Publishers Weekly review says of the book, “Entertaining…Combining history, whimsical biography, personal travelogue, and love letter to Italy, the book portrays Lisa Gherardini has a Renaissance Everywoman…an accessible, vivid examination of women’s lives in Florence in that period.”

The Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago, directed by Andrea Raos, is the cultural office of the Consulate General of Italy in Chicago. Founded in 1985, the Institute is one of five cultural agencies of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the United States. The Institute serves as a convenient source for information about Italian life and culture that showcases Italy’s classic and contemporary heritage with particular reference to art, music, cinema, design, architecture, science, and technology.

Best of Chicago 2014!!

Chicago Reader was nice enough to give us a write up in their Best of Chicago issue this year.  Check us out!

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/best-indie-bookstore-in-a-chain-filled-neighborhood/BestOf?oid=13951808

CLOSED on the 4th

after-words will be CLOSED on the 4th of July.  Have a safe and happy holiday.

Cliff Dwellers Club Event June 24th at 6pm

After-words will be selling books June 24, 2014 from 6-7:30 pm at an event in the beautiful gallery at the Cliff Dwellers Club at 200 S. Michigan Avenue on the 22^nd floor.  This talk and exhibit is free and open to the public.  The talk will be by John Comazzi, author of Balthazar Korab: Architect of Photography.

The artist:

BALTHAZAR KORAB

Balthazar Korab was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1926 and began his architecture education at the Budapest Polytechnic in 1945, shortly after the end of the Second World War.  

Due largely to his published photography from his time in the Saarinen office, he began to receive numerous commissions from other architects and eventually opened an independent studio in 1958.  In 1964, after only five years in practice, he received the prestigious Gold Medal for the Photography of Architecture from the American Institute of Architects.  

Balthazar Korab’s photographs have been exhibited widely in prominent venues such as The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Centre Canadian d’Architecture in Montreal, The Walker Art Center, The National Building Museum in Washington D.C. and The Venice Biennale. 

The exhibit:

INFLECTED MODERNISM: The Architecture Photography of Balthazar Korab

This exhibition has been assembled under the premise that architecture is re-created through photography, as photographers play a crucial role in the popular and critical dissemination and reception of architecture. While we (designers, educators, historians and consumers of architecture) often ascribe a calculated objectivity to the photographic images of architecture, it is undeniable that our interpretations of the original sources are inflected by the experiences, sensibilities and practices that photographers bring to bear on their subjects.  As such, this exhibition comprises a distinctive selection of photographs from the archive of Balthazar Korab, one the most prolific and celebrated photographers of mid-century Modern architecture in the twentieth century.

The speaker:

John Comazzi is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Minnesota where he teaches design studios and research seminars at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. 

For more information about this exhibit please visit: http://cliff-chicago.org/news/calendar/