Begun in March 2014 and held in a variety of locations in New York City and beyond, Lighght Reading was a bi-monthly reading and performance series curated and hosted by UDP editors and authors. The series featured emerging poets and underexposed writing in translation, often pairing a writer or translator associated with UDP with readers and performers from other communities. All events were free and open to the public. Limited-edition broadsides, letterpressed at the UDP studio, accompanied each reading.

The series took its name from Aram Saroyan’s poem “lighght” (Complete Minimal Poems, UDP/Primary Information, 2014). Inspired by the poem’s emphasis on the materiality of the word and the play between oral and written language, Lighght Reading strove to connect the materiality of the page to the orality of a poetry reading.

Lighght Reading is indefinitely on hiatus. Join our mailing list to hear about future iterations.