***canceled*** Andrei Codrescu - SO RECENTLY RENT A WORLD ***canceled***

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED DUE TO BAD WEATHER WHICH HAS RESULTED IN THE CANCELLATION OF THE AUTHOR'S FLIGHT TO NEW ORLEANS.

Please join us for a very special evening when Andrei Codrescu returns to Octavia Books to read and sign his new book, SO RECENTLY RENT A WORLD: New and Selected Poems, 1968-2012, a landmark poetry selection that follows the upswell, downfall, and wake of 41 years of wrestling the muse.

Raconteur, poet, and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu delivers in his inimitable, irreverent style a collection that traverses subjects from aging to consumerism and religion to mass media. Brilliantly funny yet deeply insightful, these poems illuminate Codrescu’s acerbic tone and outsized personality and capture the best of his oeuvre.

For four and a half decades, Andrei Codrescu has been a vivid presence in our literary life. He has written novels, essays, and reportage; made films; taught literature; produced regular commentary for radio and newspapers; edited a literary journal--but he is foremost a poet who has made this art the bedrock and standard for all his writing. So Recently Rent a World: New And Selected Poems, 1968-2012, is a selection of his decades’ long dalliance and adventures with the muse, with a hefty addition of new unpublished work.

Andrei Codrescu, World Heavyweight Champion Poet, essayist, novelist, and screenwriter, was born in Sibiu, Romania, in 1946, and immigrated to the United States in 1966. Author of forty books, Codrescu has edited the literary magazine Exquisite Corpse and his provocative commentary is featured regularly on National Public Radio’s award-winning newsmagazine All Things Considered. His honors include the Peabody Award for his film Road Scholar, the Big Table Poetry Award, and the Literature Prize of the Romanian Cultural Foundation, as well as National Endowment for the Arts fellowships for poetry, editing, and radio. He currently lives in the Ozarks near the Buffalo River National Park.

The New York Times Book Review has called Codrescu “One of our most prodigiously talented and magical writers,” The Los Angeles Times has proclaimed him, “a modern day DeTocqueville.” The Houston Chronicle noted that he is “among the most astute contemporary observers of what William Carlos Williams called ‘the American grain,’ while simultaneously joining playwright Eugene Ionesco as one of Romania’s great rememberers of dictatorial things past.” Lawrence Ferlinghetti said that he “creates a craving for the subversive—something much needed in these days of ‘friendly fascism,’ Kay Boyle called his work “a cause for celebration.” And, The St. Petersburg Times commented that “if Andrei Codrescu still lived in Europe, he’d be a public intellectual, consulted by presidents and ministers on issues of education, economics, and possibilities of pleasure. But since he is now a resident if the United States, he has to content himself with being a cult figure. America hasn’t melted Codrescu. He’s as solid a voice as we have.”