Between Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens there are readings happening every night. Each Sunday, Coldfront will feature five upcoming readings.
Monday, June 25th 2012, 7pm
Death Hums Presents: Issue 1 Launch
Balcony Lounge @ Webster Hall, 125 East 11th Street, Manhattan, NY
With readings by:
ERIC AMLING is the author of the books TWIN VAPOR and SPLIT LEVEL IGLOO. His collage work and writing has appeared on the albums of the bands Dr. Dog and the Bowerbirds.
MELISSA BRODER is the author of two poetry collections: Meat Heart and When You Say One Thing but Mean Your Mother. Recent poems appear in Guernica, Redivider, Court Green, The Missouri Review, et al. She edits La Petite Zine.
ANDREW DURBIN co-edits Wonder, a publisher of artist books, pamphlets, ephemera, and glossies. He was a founding editor of O’clock Press and it’s journal, CLOCK. His work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Antennae, InDigest, Washington Square, Web Conjunctions, West Wind Review, and elsewhere. He works for the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
JAY DESHPANDE‘s poems and reviews have been published or are forthcoming in Washington Square, Boston Review, Shampoo, Upstairs at Duroc, and the Argos Books anthology Why I Am Not A Painter. He curates the Metro Rhythm Reading Series in Williamsburg, and is the former poetry editor of AGNI. He currently teaches writing at Columbia University.
BEN FAMA is the author of the chapbook Aquarius Rising (UDP 2009) and New Waves (Minutes Books 2011). From 2008-2011 he edited Supermachine (RIP). His work has been featured in The Denver Quarterly, The Brooklyn Rail, notnostrums, LIT, Poor Claudia, and on the Best American Poetry Blog, among others.
SASHA FLETCHER is the author of the novella WHEN ALL OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED MARCHING BANDS WILL FILL THE STREETS AND WE WILL NOT HEAR THEM BECAUSE HE WILL BE UPSTAIRS IN THE CLOUDS [mud luscious press 2010]. His second chapbook I CANNOT PRETEND TO BE A GHOST TODAY is forthcoming from Paperpusher.
ALLYSON PATY is the author of the chapbook The Further Away ([sic] 2012). My poems have appeared in publications such as Tin House, DIAGRAM, Boxcar Poetry Review, and InDigest among others. My collaborations with poet Danniel Schoonebeek have appeared on The Awl, HTMLGIANT, and Underwater New York and are forthcoming in Gulf Coast.
RENEE RISHER was born and raised in Southern California and lived in Austin, TX and Seattle, WA before moving to New York City to study poetry in the Columbia University M.F.A. progam. She received her B.A. in Visual Art from the University of California at San Diego in 2002. She has worked in many artistic media and her installation, Neon Loci, was included in the Lofi Art Festival at Smokefarm near Arlington, WA in August 2009. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the American Book Review.
TIMOTHY WOJCIK lives in Brooklyn, and he likes it there, but sometimes he misses Arkansas and Texas. His two poems featured in death hums issue 1 are part of a larger collection titled The Missing Town. Another piece from that collection lives in Corium Magazine.
ANGELA VERONICA WONG is the author of the full-length postry collection how to survive a hotel fire (Coconut Books 2012). She is on the internet at www.angelaveronicawong.com.
MATTHEW ZINGG‘s work appears in The Awl, Cider Press Review, The Rumpus, The Madison Review and Opium Magazine among others. He received his MFA in poetry from Adelphi University and is a co-founding member of the writers collective, fourteen-forty-one.
For a full list of Issue 1 contributors, visit deathhums.org. Sponsored by The QAS.
Free admission, all ages, full bar 21+ with ID
Wednesday, June 27th 2012, 6:30pm
Center Broadsides Reading Series
The Center for Book Arts, 28 West 27th Street, 3rd Floor, Manhattan, New York
The last of three spring Broadsides Readings organized by visual artist James Walsh. A poem by each poet will be printed by artists at the Center in the form of a limited edition letterpress broadside. Guests will receive free copies signed by the authors.
$10 Suggested Donation/ $5 members
Featuring JOSHUA BECKMAN reading his own poems and the work of MARY RUEFLE.
JOSHUA BECKMAN was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and earned his BA from Hampshire College, where he studied poetry and the art of the book. He is the author of five books of poetry: Things Are Happening (1998); Something I Expected To Be Different (2001); Nice Hat. Thanks. (2002), written with Matthew Rohrer; Your Time Has Come (2004), Shake (Wave Books, 2006), and Take It, a Coldfront pick for Best New Book of Poetry in 2009.
In his introduction to Things Are Happening, poet Gerald Stern noted the “openness” of Beckman’s poems: “His identity is through affection. That is his print.” In a review for Coldfront, John Deming commented: “Beckman’s traditionally a master at converting the personal to the existential in a deceptively plain-spoken way.” He co-edited State of the Union: 50 Political Poems (2008), an anthology of political poems, with Matthew Zapruder. He has also translated poems by Carlos Oquendo de Amat and Tomaž Šalamun. Beckman lives in Seattle and in Brooklyn, New York.
JAMES WALSH was born in Brooklyn, NY, studied literature at Hobart College, Geneva, NY and Oxford University, England. He has been making visual work in a variety of media since 1986, and has shown throughout the United States and in Turkey, Italy, England, and Sweden. He is the author of two books, Foundations (1997) and Solvitur ambulando (2003), and numerous unique and limited-edition artist’s books. Awards and residencies include a Fulbright Fellowship to Turkey and residencies at MacDowell Colony, The Edward Albee Foundation, Art Omi, and Center for Book Arts. His work comes out of a love for natural history, particularly the history of natural history. He’s currently in Bangkok.
MARY RUEFLE has published many books of poetry, including, Selected Poems (Wave Books, 2010); A Little White Shadow (2006), an art book of “erasures,” a variation on found poetry; Tristimania (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 2003), Among the Musk Ox People (2002); Apparition Hill (2001); Cold Pluto (2001); Post Meridian (2000); Cold Pluto (1996); The Adamant (1989), winner of the 1988 Iowa Poetry Prize; Life Without Speaking (1987); and Memling’s Veil (1982). She’s in Vermont.
Wednesday, June 27th 2012, 7pm
The Inspired Word
116, 116 MacDougal Street, Downstairs Lounge, Manhattan, NY
Open mic to follow. Hosted by HBO Def Poetry star Gemineye.
Featuring:
NIGEL WADE is a Milwaukee native that got his stripes appearing at open mics and Slams around the Midwest. After reading at open mics, participating in the Midwest Slam League, and winning a few slams, the scene wanted to see more of what this poet could do. Drawn in by his animated performance and poetic style, Nigel was told that he had a “…unique sound. You don’t sound like someone else, you sound like you.” by the founder of PSI, Mark Smith (So what?!) This unique style earned him a place on the Milwaukee National Slam Team from 2006 through 2011 among some of Milwaukee’s finest poets and two Grand Slam Champion Titles. In 2007, he earned the right to represent Milwaukee at the 2007 Individual World Poetry Slam in Vancouver, Canada. He has relocated to Manhattan and, now, looks to make his mark in the New York Poetry scene.
Born of Afro-Caribbean descent, CHRISTINE-JEAN BLAIN has always been a storyteller. Whether writing poetry or fiction, she uses words to paint pictures of how things are, or maybe could have been. As an educator Ms. Blain uses her experience, passion and creativity to build a bridge between what is occurring in our society and how it is being used and interpreted by our communities. In addition to teaching World History and Literature, Ms. Blain has performed and lectured at colleges and universities throughout the United States.Currently residing in Brooklyn, New York, Christine- Jean Blain is the author of Lighting the Path Back Home a short collection of poetry and prose. Her work has been published in many anthologies, and magazines, most recently African Voices, and A Lime Jewel. She is a former Writer in Residence at Hedgebrook, and a founding member of Dusks Daughters arts collective.
ULULY RAFAEL MARTINEZ was first drawn to poetry through hip-hop. His love of words came to embrace other forms, rhyming and non-rhyming, but the poets he most gravitates to are those who speak to his experience growing up in urban America. Ululy found his poetic voice after attending an open mic at the Inspired Word and now spends most of his poetry time writing about the struggles of his people. His publications include: a memorandum of law in support of a motion to reduce his Dad’s prison sentence; uncounted resumes written to help people in his community secure jobs; a grant application for funds to secure the right to legal representation for defendants unable to afford an attorney; letters to the Public Housing Authority in support of section 8 beneficiaries facing eviction; and other writings crafted to advance the cause of justice.
Friday, June 29th 2012, 7-9 pm
Paragraph Reading
KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street, Manhattan, NY
Paragraph‘s monthly reading series at KGB showcases its members’ work. Free and open to the public.
Readers:
DANIEL B. LEVINSON is a Long Island-based fiction writer, screenwriter, and librettist. His screenwriting works have placed in a number of competitions, including an Honorable Mention from ScriptSavvy, a Quarterfinalist position from StoryPros, and a finalist position in 2011′s Cyberspace Open. He wrote the libretto for the musical Bathory, which was a NYMF finalist in 2009. His fiction works include the urban fantasy novel Into the Veil, a horror novel entitled Bright Orchards, and the science fiction war drama Psionic Earth, for which he is actively pursuing representation. He graduated from NYU with a BFA in 2007.
AARON POOCHIGIAN earned his Phd in Classics from the University of Minnesota in 2006. Stung With Love, his book of translations from Sappho, was published by Penguin Classics in 2009 (with a preface by Carol Anne Duffy), and he has been awarded an NEA Grant in Translation. Johns Hopkins University Press put out his translations of Aratus’ Phaenomena and Aeschylus’ early plays in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Able Muse Press published his first book of original poetry, The Cosmic Purr, in March of 2012, and several of the poems in it collectively won the New England Poetry Club’s Daniel Varoujan Prize. His work has appeared in such newspapers and journals as the Financial Times, Poems Out Loud and POETRY.
BETTY SHAMIEH‘s off-Broadway premieres are The Black Eyed (New York Theatre Workshop) and Roar (The New Group), which was selected as a New York Times Critics Pick for four weeks. Shamieh was named a 2011 UNESCO Young Artist for Intercultural Dialogue for artistic excellence and her role in fostering cross-cultural artistic exchanges. Her recent European productions in translation include Again and Against (Playhouse Teater, Stockholm), The Black Eyed (Fournos Theatre, Athens), and Territories (co-production of the Landes-Theatre and the 2009 European Union Capital of Culture Festival). Shamieh was named as a Playwriting Fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies in 2006.
Saturday, June 30th 2012, 7pm
Litmus Press Presents: An Evening of New Poetry
The Old Stone House, 336 3rd St. @ 5th Ave, Park Slope, Brooklyn
READINGS // MUSIC // ART // PERFORMANCE
BEER // WINE // SNACKS
Join Litmus Press in celebration of its new and recent releases: Then Go On by Mary Burger, I Want to Make You Safe by Amy King, O Bon by Brandon Shimoda, and Aufgabe #11.
Readings by MARY BURGER, AMY KING, CHRISTIAN NAGLER, EMILY ABENDROTH, ANA BOŽIČEVIĆ, CARLEY MOORE, and SIMONE WHITE.
Artwork by MARY BURGER and YASMINA KHAN, music by SERENA JOST, and a special participatory performance by TODD SHALOM (Elastic City).
This event is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc. (BAC).
Beer has been lovingly provided by Brooklyn Brewery. Small bites from Sahadi’s. Wine from Thirst.
– Stephanie Ann Whited
Tags: Aaron Poochigan, Abiola Abrams, Aimee Herman, Allyson Paty, Amy King, Ana Bozicevic, Andrew Durbin, Angela Veronica Wong, Aufgabe, Ben Fama, Betty Shamieh, Brandon Shimoda, Brooklyn, Brooklyn Arts Council, Carley Moore, Center Broadsides Reading Series, Christian Nagler, Christine-Jean Blain, Daniel B. Levinson, Emily Abendroth, Eric Amling, Greater New York Arts Development Fund, Jay Deshpande, Jefferson, Litmus Press, Lynsey G, Mary Burger, Matthew Zingg, Melissa Broder, New York City, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Nigel Wade, reading, Renee Risher, sasha fletcher, Simone White, Stephanie Ann Whited, Thad Rutkowski, The Center for Book Arts, The Inspired Word, TImothy Wojcik, Ululy Rafael Martinez
Posted in news
Each Sunday, Coldfront features five upcoming cross-borough readings in NYC. Email stephanie(dot)whited(at)gmail to submit a listing for consideration. 
