Posts Tagged ‘New York City’

This Week in NYC: Featured Readings

Sunday, June 9th, 2013

Sundays, Coldfront features five upcoming cross-borough NYC readings. Check out this week’s picks.

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Family Camp NYC
Sunday, June 9th @ 7pm
Unnameable Books, 600 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn, NY

Join us for the big night of prose and poems NYC has been dying for:
- Hosted by the tall, wise Mr. Greg “Gregory” Gerke.
- Hot new poems from local favorites Ben Pease and Bianca Stone.
For the diehards, Gabe Durham and Jack Christian have promised ZERO overlap in what they’re reading on their two nights in town.
- Mad prizes.
- Probably no prizes.

Gabe Durham‘s debut novel, FUN CAMP, come out May 31 from Publishing Genius Press. Pieces of the book have appeared in over 25 journals and magazines, including The Good Men Project, Corium, and Necessary Fiction. Gabe lives in Los Angeles, tweets @GabeDurham, and holds it down at Gather Round Children.

Jack Christian is the author of the poetry collection Family System, which was awarded the 2012 Colorado Prize. His poems have appeared journals such as Web Conjunctions, Verse Daily, Diagram, and jubilat.

Ben Pease is the creator and host of Scattered Rhymes, the featured podcast of The The Poetry Blog. His poetry has appeared in MAGGY, Paperbag, and SUPERMACHINE, among others. A selection of his Blockbuster in Verse, Wichman Cometh, is available from Monk Books.

Bianca Stone was born and raised in Vermont, and received her M.F.A. from N.Y.U.’s creative writing program in 2009. She is the author of several chapbooks, most recently Someone Else’s Wedding Vows (Argos Books), and the poetry-comic I Want To Open The Mouth God Gave You, Beautiful Mutant (Factory Hollow Press). Her poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in such magazines as Best American Poetry 2011, Conduit, and Tin House. She lives in Brooklyn.

Greg Gerke’s fiction and non-fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Tin House, The Kenyon Review Online, Denver Quarterly, Quarterly West, Mississippi Review, LIT, Film Comment, and others. He lives in Brooklyn.

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Lunar Walk Poetry Series: Egan & Allegretti
Sunday, June 9th @ 4pm – 6pm
Two Moon Art House & Cafe, 315 4th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

A resident of Rome, Italy, Moira Egan’s Bar Napkin Sonnets (2009) won the 2008 Ledge Poetry Chapbook Competition. She is the author of the collections Cleave (2004); La Seta della Cravatta / The Silk of the Tie (2009), a bilingual collection with Italian translations by Damiano Abeni, and Spin (2010). With Abeni and Joseph Harrison, Egan has also published a translation of John Ashbery’s poems— Un mondo che non può essere migliore: Poesie Scelte 1956–2007 (2008).

Joel Allegretti is the author of four collections of poetry: Europa/ Nippon/ New York: Poems/ Not-Poems (2012); Thrum; Father Silicon, and The Plague Psalms. He is also the editor of the anthology Rabbit Ears: TV Poems, forthcoming from Poets Wear Prada in Fall 2013, and his poems have in many journals including The New York Quarterly, Maintenant: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing & Art; Fulcrum, The Best American Poetry blog, and the anthologies Divining Divas, Token Entry: New York City Subway Poems and Chance of a Ghost.

Sponsored by Lunar Walk Poetry Series at the Two Moon Art House & Cafe

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KGB Monday Night Poetry: Liardet & Militello
Monday, June 10th @ 7pm to 9pm
KGB Bar, 85 E. 4th St, New York, NY

Tim Liardet has produced seven collections of poetry. His third collection Competing with the Piano Tuner was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation and short-listed for the Whitbread Poetry Prize and his fourth— To the God of Rain— a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Spring 2003. The Blood Choir, his fifth collection, won an Arts Council England Writer’s Award as a collection-in-progress, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation for Summer 2006 and shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize for best collection of that year. The Storm House, his seventh collection, was published by Carcanet in June 2011. Madame Sasoo Goes Bathing, a pamphlet, appears this year; his next full collection is due from Carcanet in September 2014; his New and Selected Poems, from the same publisher, in September 2015. He is Professor of Poetry at Bath Spa University, England.

Jennifer Militello’s first collection, Flinch of Song, won the Tupelo Press First Book Award, and her second collection, Body Thesaurus, was named a finalist for the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award by Marilyn Hacker and is forthcoming from Tupelo Press. She is also author of the chapbook Anchor Chain, Open Sail. Her poems have been published widely in such journals as The Kenyon Review, The New Republic, The North American Review, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and The Virginia Quarterly Review, anthologized in Best New Poets 2008, and awarded the Barbara Bradley Award from the New England Poetry Club, the Ruskin Art Club Poetry Award from Red Hen Press, and the 49th Parallel Award from Bellingham Review. In addition, she has been awarded grants and fellowships from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Writers at Work, and the Millay Colony for the Arts.

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BOA Editions: Bryant Park Poetry Series
Tuesday, June 11th @ 7pm to 8:30pm
The Bryant Park Reading Room, New York, NY

For the Bryant Park poetry series, four poets with new books are invited by their publisher to read on a particular date. For BOA that date is Tuesday, June 11. The reading begins at 7pm and each poet reads for approximately 15 to 20 minutes. All the poets titles in print are available for purchase at the reading.

Poets: Christopher Kennedy, Craig Morgan Teicher, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Michael Waters

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The Poetry Project: Lee Ann Brown & Annabel Lee
Wednesday, June 12 @ 8pm
Saint Mark’s Church, 131 E 10th St, New York, NY

Lee Ann Brown‘s past books include Polyverse and The Sleep That Changed Everything. Annabel Lee is the author of Basket (Accent Editions, 2012).

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This Week in NYC: Featured Readings

Sunday, March 17th, 2013

Evie-Shockley

Sundays, Coldfront features five upcoming readings across the NYC boroughs. Seeking personal growth? Venture out this Thursday for an exercise in decisiveness.

Here are this week’s picks.

 

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The Poetry Project: Nielson/Shockley
Monday, March 18 @ 8 pm
Saint Mark’s Church, 131 E 10th St, New York, NY

A.L. Nielsen’s latest book, A Brand New Beggar, is just out from Steerage Press. His work has appeared in Best American Poems and other anthologies, and he has won two Gertrude Stein Awards for his poetry. His critical works have won the Josephine Miles Award, the SAMLA Studies Prize, the Kayden Award for best book in the humanities, and a Gustavus Myers Citation. Nielsen is currently the George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature at the Pennsylvania State University.

Evie Shockley’s most recent book of poetry, the new black (Wesleyan), won the 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Poetry. Recipient of the 2012 Holmes National Poetry Prize, Shockley is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
 

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Crazy Brave: Joy Harjo
Thursday, March 21 @ 6 pm
National Museum of the American Indian, 1 Bowling Green, New York, NY

Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a member of the Mvskoke Nation. Her books of poetry have garnered many awards, including the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. She has released four award-winning CD’s of original music and in 2009 won a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist of the Year.

This reading is part of Native Innovation: Indigenous American Poetry in the 21st Century, a landmark symposium bringing together a new generation of Native American poets in a convocation of readings and conversations for an in-depth look at the dynamic state of current Native American poetry and poetics in the 21st century. Featuring leading Native American poets and co-curated by Joseph Bruchac and Allison Hedge Coke, this event examines a range of issues, including native languages, traditional storytelling, formal innovation, Native American politics, and much more.

Sponsored by Poets House, National Museum of the American Indian, Lannan Foundation, Copper Canyon Press, University of Arizona Press

 

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Marcella DurandBoogWork
Thursday, March 21 @ 6pm
Sidewalk Cafe, 94 Ave A, New York, NY

BoogWork will feature two poets reading, a musical act performing, and then oneof the poets will give the gathered a poetry workshop (don’t forget to bring a pen and paper). $5 suggested.

reading and workshop from
Joe Elliot
Joe Elliot teaches high school English in Brooklyn, where he lives with his wife, Anne Noonan, and their three boys. He is the author of numerous chapbooks including You Gotta Go In It’s The Big Game, Poems To Be Centered On Much Much Larger Sheets Of Paper, 15 Clanking Radiators, 14 Knots, Reduced, Half Gross, a collaboration with artist John Koos; and Object Lesson, a collaboration with artist Rich O’Russa. Granary Books published If It Rained Here, a collaboration with artist Julie Harrison. His work has appeared in many magazines, including The World, The Poker, Giants Play Well In The Drizzle, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Torque, Chain, Epiphany, Lungfull, Ocho, and Arras. Faux Press published his long poem, “101 Designs for The World Trade Center”. In 2006, a collection of his work, Opposable Thumb, was published by subpress, and in 2010 Lunar Chandelier Press brought out Homework.

reading from
Marcella Durand
Marcella Durand’s most recent books are Deep Eco Pre, a collaboration with Tina Darragh (LRL e-editions); AREA (Belladonna*); and Traffic & Weather (Futurepoem books), a site-specific book-length poem written during a residency at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council in downtown Manhattan. She was a 2009 fellow in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the 2010-2011 Fellow in Poetics and Poetic Practice for the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania, and a 2011-2013 Fellow at The Black Earth Institute. She lives in New York City, where she has recently completed a new collection, The Prospect, and works as a writer and editor for a medical nonprofit.

and music from
Bubble
 

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Maggie NelsonNelson & Koestenbaum with Fama
Thursday, March 21 @ 7pm
St. Mark’s Bookstore, 31 3rd Ave, New York, NY

A reading with Maggie Nelson & Wayne Koestenbaum followed by a discussion moderated by Ben Fama!

The writing of Maggie Nelson and Wayne Koestenbaum skillfully shifts between forms—criticism, poetry, memoir, and the novel—to address subjects such as Harpo Marx, slasher films, Jackie Onassis, abstract expressionism, hotels, and Hermann Nitsch’s Viennese Actionism, and often sexuality—from the playfully perverse to the horrors of sexual violence. The reading will be followed by a discussion led by poet Ben Fama.

Maggie Nelson is the author of four books of nonfiction and four books of poetry. Her most recent book, The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning (W. W. Norton, 2011), was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and an Editors’ Choice. Her other nonfiction books include the cult classic Bluets (Wave Books, 2009); a critical study of poetry and painting titled Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions (University of Iowa Press, 2007; winner, the Susanne M. Glasscock Award for Interdisciplinary Scholarship); and an autobiographical book about sexual violence and media spectacle titled The Red Parts: A Memoir (Free Press, 2007). She currently lives in Los Angeles.

Wayne Koestenbaum has published six books of poetry: Blue Stranger with Mosaic Background, Best-Selling Jewish Porn Films, Model Homes, The Milk of Inquiry, Rhapsodies of a Repeat Offender, and Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems. He has also published a novel, Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes, and eight books of nonfiction: The Anatomy of Harpo Marx, Humiliation, Hotel Theory, Andy Warhol, Cleavage, Jackie Under My Skin, The Queen’s Throat (a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist), and Double Talk. His next book, My 1980s & Other Essays, is forthcoming in August 2013 from FSG. Koestenbaum is a Distinguished Professor of English at the CUNY Graduate Center. His first solo exhibition of paintings was at White Columns gallery in New York in Fall 2012.

Ben Fama is the author of New Waves, Aquarius Rising, and the artist book Mall Witch. He is the co-editor of Wonder, a publisher of art books, glossies, and pamphlets. His work appears in The Brooklyn Rail, Action Yes, Jubilat, notnostrums, LIT, Poor Claudia, Denver Quarterly, Maggy, and on the Best American Poetry Blog. He lives in New York City.
 

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Rachel LevitskyQueer Division III: Levitsky’s The Story of Our Accident
Thursday, March 21 @ 7:30pm
The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, 27 Orchard St, New York, NY

Queer Division is celebrating the release of Rachel Levitsky’s new book, The Story of Our Accident Is Ours, just out from Futurepoem.

+ + + READERS + + +

Besides her first novel, brand spanking newly out from Futurepoem, and called The Story of My Accident is Ours, Rachel Levitsky is the author of two previous books called poetry, Under the Sun (Futurepoem, 2003) NEIGHBOR (UDP, 2009). She is the founder of the feminist avant-garde network, Belladonna* Collaborative. In 2010 with Christian Hawkey, she started The Office of Recuperative Strategies (OoRS.net), a mobile research unit variously located in Amsterdam, Berlin, Boulder, Brooklyn, Cambridge, NYC and the Universität Leipzig in Leipzig. She lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Pratt Institute.

erica kaufman is the author of censory impulse (Factory School 2009) as well as several chapbooks. her most recent project is called INSTANT CLASSIC. she lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Baruch College and the Institute for Writing & Thinking at Bard College.

Michelle Betters is a poet living in New York.

+ + + HOSTS + + +

The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division is a queer bookstore and event space hosted by Strange Loop Gallery on the Lower East Side of New York City from November 15, 2012 through March 31, 2013. We aim to foster a community invested in the values of mindfulness, intellectual curiosity, justice, compassion, and playfulness. The Bureau seeks to excite and educate a self-confident, sex-positive, and supportive queer community by offering books, publications, and art and by hosting reading groups, authors’ talks, and performances. We provide local and visiting queers and friends with an open and inclusive space for dialogue and socializing. The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division welcomes you.

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– SAW

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This Week in NYC: Featured Readings

Sunday, February 24th, 2013

Every Sunday, Coldfront features 5 upcoming cross-borough readings in NYC. Email a listing for consideration to stephanie(dot)whited(at)gmail. Check out this week’s picks.

 

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The Highwaymen NYC #10
Monday, February 25th @ 7pm
The Imaginary Space, Brooklyn, NY

Emmalea Russo is a poet and visual artist. She received her MFA in Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Recent work has appeared in Ambush Review, ILK, Wicked Alice, and Yew Journal. Two chapbooks, clearing (dancing girl press) and book of southern and water (Poor Claudia) are forthcoming in 2013. She lives in Brooklyn.

Elizabeth Clark Wessel is a founding editor of Argos Books & recently became co-editor of Circumference: Poetry in Translation. Her poems and translations have appeared in DIAGRAM, A Public Space, Guernica, Sixth Finch, Lana Turner Journal, Jacket2, The Laurel Review, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the Bennett Poetry Prize at Columbia University, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. Dana Levin chose her manuscript Whither Weather for the Midwest Chapbook Series, sponsored by The Laurel Review. She was born and raised in western Nebraska, and now lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she works as a translator.

Kurt Opprecht is the son of a rocket scientist and a financial planner. He was born and raised in Brigham City, Utah, a very small town from which he fled in the early eighties. He currently lives on the lower East Side of Manhattan where he writes tiny poems and crafts devices from which he claims to obtain supernatural powers. He is a certified charlatan and teaches writing at NYU-SCPS and Gotham Writer Workshop. Twitter: @opprecht. Tumblr: tinypinkfrog.

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Diez/1/2/3 Release: Kanownick, Dodson, Rubin
Tuesday, February 26 @ 7pm
Tandem Bar, 236 Troutman St, Brooklyn, NY

Diez will celebrate its own late February Spring blossom with readings from new chapbooks:

Christine Kanownik
We are Beginning to Act Wildly

Ted Dodson
Pop! in Spring

Judah Rubin
With Fierce Convulse/Die into Life

Author Bios:

Judah Rubin is more than a feeling.
Ted Dodson can’t get no satisfaction.
Christine Kanownik don’t stop believin’.

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Mental Marginalia: Reynolds, Foley, Xu, Guez
Tuesday, February 26 @ 8pm
The West, 379 Union Ave, Brooklyn, NY

Remember to wear two pairs of socks!

Christie Ann Reynolds is the author of Revenge for Revenge just out with Coconut Books in December. She has an MFA in poetry from The New School and is a curator of the reading and performance series, TOTEM: poetry + film. Christie Ann recently won a 2012 Poets & Writers Amy Award. She lives in Brooklyn and teaches poetry, creative writing and science in a middle school.

Brian Foley is the author of several chapbooks including Going Attractions (Greying Ghost, 2012) & TOTEM, which won the 2011 Equinox Chapbook Context and is forthcoming from Fact-Simile editions. He lives in Northampton MA.

Wendy Xu is the author of YOU ARE NOT DEAD, a full-length collection forthcoming from Cleveland State University Poetry Center (March 6, 2013) and two chapbooks The Hero Poems (H_NGM_N, 2011), and I Was Not Even Born (Coconut Books, 2013), a collaborative work with Nick Sturm. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Best American Poetry 2013, Best of the Net 2012, GulfCoast, Columbia Poetry Review, Sonora Review, and elsewhere. She is the co-editor and publisher of iO: A Journal of New American Poetry / iO Books, and with Leora Fridman, co-curator of the jubilat / Jones Reading Series.

Julia Guez is a Fulbright Fellow with a Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University.  Her poetry and prose has appeared or will soon be forthcoming in BOMBLog, The Brooklyn Rail, Coldfront, Court Green, DIAGRAM and Washington Square.

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A Public Space 17 Launch Party
February 27th @ 7pm
BookCourt, 162 Court St, Brooklyn, NY

Join A Public Space and BookCourt for an evening with a few of our beloved contributors. Mark Bibbins, Jessica Francis Kane, and Tom Drury will read from their work, featured in APS 17.

Refreshments will be served. Copies of APS 17 will be available for purchase.

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The Perfect Sense Reading Series
Wednesday, February 27th  @ 6-7:45pm
Cornelia Street Cafe, 29 Cornelia St, New York, NY 

Timothy Donnelly is the author of two books of poetry, Twenty-seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit, and The Cloud Corporation. He earned a BA from the Johns Hopkins University, an MFA from Columbia University, and a PhD from Princeton University. Donnelly’s poems have been published in anthologies such as Joyful Noise: An Anthology of American Spiritual Poetry, as well as magazines and journals including Harper’s, jubilat, The Nation, The Paris Review, PEN America, Ploughshares, TriQuartely, and various others. Donnelly is an assistant professor and director of undergraduate creative writing at Columbia University. He is also the poetry editor for Boston Review. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and two daughters.

Melissa Fadul teaches classical poetry at Maspeth High School, in New York, where she serves as assistant principal of the English Literature department.  She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with an MFA in poetry in 2006.  Currently, she is adapting the play, The Laramie Project, for her students to perform, while piecing together a new collection of poetry.  She can be contacted at melissafadul(at)gmail(dot)com.

Chloe Yelena Miller‘s chapbook, Unrest, was published by Finishing Line Press. Her work is published or forthcoming inAlimentum, The Cortland Review, Narrative Magazine, Poet’s Market, and Storyscape Literary Journal, among others. Chloe has an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College. She has participated in the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center residency and the A Room of Her Own Writers’ Retreat. Chloe teaches writing online at Fairleigh Dickinson University, George Mason University and privately, and leads writing workshops at Politics & Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C.

Danniel Schoonebeek’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Tin House, Boston Review, Fence, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review, Guernica, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, The Rumpus, Crazyhorse, Drunken Boat, and elsewhere. He writes a monthly column on poetry for The American Reader, hosts theHatchet Job reading series in Brooklyn, and works as an associate editor at PEN America.

Leah Umansky’s first collection of poems, Domestic Uncertainties, is available now from BlazeVOX Books. She is the host and curator of the COUPLET Reading Series. She has been a contributing writer for BOMB Magazine’s BOMBLOG, a poetry reviewer for The Rumpus, and a live twit for The Best American Poetry Blog. She is presently at work on her second collection of poems focusing on our technological world, AMC’s Mad Men, and life in the 21st century.Read more at: Iammyownheroine.com.

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– SAW

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This Week in NYC: Featured Readings

Sunday, January 27th, 2013

Sorry House Book ReleaseEvery week, Coldfront features five cross-borough readings in NYC. Here are this week’s picks.
 

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Boog City presents d.a. levy lives: celebrating the renegade press
Tuesday, January 29 @ 6:30 pm
Sidewalk Café, 94 Ave. A, New York, NY
$5 suggested

Event will be hosted by Hyacinth Girl editors Margaret Bashaar and Sarah Reck.

Curated and with an introduction by Boog City editor David Kirschenbaum.

Hyacinth Girl Press is a micro-press founded in 2011 that publishes poetry chapbooks. They specialize in handmade books of smaller press runs. They consider themselves a feminist press and are particularly interested in manuscripts dealing with topics such as radical spiritual experiences, creation/interpretation of myth through a feminist lens, and science. They think outer space, in particular, is pretty darn cool. Hyacinth Girl Press is edited by Margaret Bashaar and designed/laid out by Sarah Reck.

Margaret Bashaar‘s second chapbook, Letters from Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel, was released by Blood Pudding Press in 2011. Her poetry has also appeared in or is forthcoming from journals such as Caketrain, Copper Nickel, Menacing Hedge, New South, and RHINO, among others. She edits Hyacinth Girl Press and lives in Pittsburgh with her husband, her son, and far too many typewriters.

Sarah Kain Gutowski‘s poems have been published in Epiphany, So to Speak: A Feminist Journal, The Gettysburg Review, The Southern Review, The Threepenny Review, and Verse Daily. She keeps a record of her writing life, experience in academia, and motherhood at the above url.

Crystal J. Hoffman was raised by a biker and a truck driver in the woods outside of a dead mining town. This explains why her most important accomplishments to date are having been reprimanded for climbing trees on three continents and nearly freeing a monkey within one week of assuming her first full-time teaching post. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Arsenic Lobster, Redactions: Poetry and Poetics, Strange Horizons, Whiskey Island, and WomenArts Quarterly. She cofounded and directed the TypewriterGirls Poetry Cabaret with Hyacinth Girl Press editor Margaret Bashaar for five years and spent the past year inducing the Cabaret Voltaire spirit in the Middle East while teaching creative writing at the American University of Beirut.

Niina Pollari wrote two chapbooks, Book Four (Hyacinth Girl Press) and Fabulous Essential (Birds of Lace). A full-length translation of the work of Tytti Heikkinen is due out from Action Books in spring 2013.

Sarah Reck’s short stories have appeared in Elephant Tree and The Tributary. She is co-founding and managing editor of Litterbox Magazine (on hiatus), and blogs at the above url. She lives in New York City and works as a web publicist for a major publishing house.

J. Hope Stein is the author of [Talking Doll] (Dancing Girl Press), [Mary] (Hyacinth Girl Press), and Corner Office (H_ngm_n Bks). She is the editor of Poetry Crush.

Boog City is a New York City-based small press now in its 22nd year and East Village community newspaper of the same name. It has put out approximately 200 publications, including 35 volumes of poetry and various magazines and a newspaper, featuring work by Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti among others, and theme issues on baseball, women’s writing, and Louisville, Ky. It hosts and curates three regular performance series—d.a. levy lives: celebrating the renegade press, featuring a non-NYC small press, its writers, and a musical act; the new BoogWork series, which features two poets reading, followed by a musical performance, and then the featured poet giving the gathered a poetry workshop; and Classic Albums Live, where up to 13 local musical acts perform a classic album live. Past albums have included Elvis Costello, My Aim is True; Nirvana, Nevermind; Sleater-Kinney’s, Dig Me Out; and Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville. All of these series are hosted at Sidewalk Cafe.

and music from
mindtroll
 

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Fledge: A Tribute to Stacy Doris
Wednesday, January 30th @ 8pm
The Poetry Project, 131 E. 10th Street, New York, NY

Join us at The Poetry Project for readings of work by internationally acclaimed poet and translator Stacy Doris, with special attention to her final book Fledge (Nightboat Books). Doris’s previous books of poetry in English are Kildare, Paramour, Conference, Knot, Cheerleader’s Guide to the World: Council Book, and The Cake Part. She also wrote three books in French and translated three volumes of French poetry into English. She died on January 31, 2012 at her home in San Francisco, where she taught in the Creative Writing Programs at SFSU. With Chet Wiener, James Sherry, Lee Ann Brown, Rob Fitterman, Kim Rosenfield, Nada Gordon, Jena Osman, Ann Lauterbach, Cole Swensen, Laynie Browne, Charles Bernstein, Carol Mirakove, Julie Regan and Daria Fain.
 

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Sorry House Book Release
Thursday, January 31st @ 7pm
Housing Works Bookstore, 126 Crosby Street, New York, NY

Poet Mira Gonzalez is joined by Kool A.D., Giancarlo DiTrapano, Spencer Madsen, Melissa Broder, Willis Plummer, and Marshall Mallicoat for a reading & celebration. Drinks, books, limited-run zines & prints will all be available.

Sorry House is a Brooklyn-based independent publisher of books in print. The first title I will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together by Mira Gonzalez will be released and sold for the first time at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe on January 31st.

All proceeds benefit Housing Works.

Flyer by Erik Carter.
 

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Brenda Shaughnessy and Craig Morgan Teicher
Friday, February 1st @ 5 pm
Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House, 58 West 10th St, New York, NY

Brenda Shaughnessy’s new collection is Our Andromeda (Copper Canyon Press, 2012). To Keep Love Blurry, Craig Morgan Teicher’s latest title, was published by BOA Editions in 2012.

Sponsored by NYU Creative Writing Program
 

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The Death and Life of American Cities
Friday, February 1st @ 10pm
The Poetry Project, 131 E. 10th Street, New York, NY

In the tradition of Floating Bear, Try!, Rolling Stock and other hyperactive journals before it, The Death and Life of American Cities is couched in the necessity of materializing writing’s frequency in all its cantering grime.  Please join us for a one night procedural intervention in this circuit to parse the first 10 months of publication/gestation with readings by erica kaufman, Jennifer Nelson, Jamie Townsend, Andrew Durbin, Josef Kaplan and others.

Liquor will flow (though you may want to bring forth from the earth, etc); myna birds will sing; there will, with god’s grace, be karaoke.

And, of course, the new Death and Life of American Cities will be available.
 

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Have a listing for consideration? Email stephanie.whited(at)gmail(dot)com.

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This Week in NYC: Featured Readings

Monday, January 21st, 2013

Every week, Coldfront features five cross-borough readings in NYC. Here’s this week’s top picks.

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Urbana Poetry Slam
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013 @ 7pm
The DL, 95 Delancey St., New York, NY

Urbana Poetry Slam is on track in The Red Room at THE DL LOUNGE (95 Delancey) with an Open Mic, Open Slam, and your feature, the amazing SUZI Q!!

Bio: SUZI Q. SMITH lives with her brilliant daughter in Denver, Colorado. She is the founding Slammaster of Slam Nuba, and she is currently among the highest ranked slam poets in the nation. Her work has appeared in a few literary magazines and anthologies, and she lives her life performing and teaching poetry and a bit of music.

Here’s a teaser: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMp3oBjd36k

6:30 Sign Up Lists Open
7:00 Open Mic
7:35 Feature
8:00 Slam
9:30 Lights Out

$8 / $5 with a Student ID Admission

…and as always follow us on twitter @urbanaslam

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UPDATE: CANCELED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER (Reschedule TBA)

STAIN OF POETRY presents THE FOUNDERS’ READING
Friday, January 25th, 2013 @ 7pm
Goodbye Blue Monday, 1087 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY

♥♥♥ featuring ♥♥♥
Ana Božičević
Amy King
Erika Moya
Christie Ann Reynolds

& your host
Jenny Zhang

CHRISTIE ANN REYNOLDS is the author of Revenge for Revenge just out with Coconut Books in December. She has an MFA in poetry from The New School and is a curator of the reading and performance series, TOTEM: poetry + film. Christie Ann recently won a 2012 Poets & Writers Amy Award. She lives in Brooklyn and teaches poetry, creative writing and science in a middle school. She curated the Stain of Poetry reading series for two years and is honored to be on the other end this evening.

ERIKA MOYA is an artist living in Bushwick. Her work can be found on real poetik, elimae and forklift ohio among other places.

Of her most recent book from Litmus Press, I Want to Make You Safe, John Ashbery described AMY KING‘s poems as bringing “abstractions to brilliant, jagged life, emerging into rather than out of the busyness of living.” Safe was one of the Boston Globe’s Best Poetry Books of 2011, and it was reviewed, among others, via the Poetry Foundation and the Colorado Review. For more, check http://www.litmuspress.org/iwanttomakeyousafe.html

ANA BOZICEVIC is the author of Stars of the Night Commute (Tarpaulin Sky Press) and the brand new Rise in the Fall (Birds, LLC). She flirts with knowledge at The Graduate Center, CUNY, where she helps run the Annual Chapbook Festival, Lost&Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative, and the Transculturations Seminar. On some days, Ana is a translator; on all, a troubadour.

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SIX NON LECTURES
Friday, January 25th, 2013 @ 7pm
Kunsthalle Galapagos, 16 Main Street, Brooklyn, NY

LECTURE TOPIC: Windows/Mirrors

“Six Non Lectures” features six contemporary poets lecturing on topics they are non-experts in, with little to no time to prepare to speak about.

PARTICIPATING POETS:

Thom Donovan
Andrew Durbin
Allison Power
Katie Raissian
Ariana Reines
Emily Skillings

OUR HOSTS:

“This Red Door” is a collaborative attempt by artists Jomar Statkun, Jared Friedman, and Christopher Stackhouse to expand terms and conditions that may define ‘studio practice’.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

http://www.thisreddoor.com/

Thom Donovan lives in New York where he works as an archivist, art writer, and professor. For more of his work check-out The Hole and Wild Horses Of Fire.

Andrew Durbin co-edits Wonder, a publisher of art books, ephemera, pamphlets, and glossies. He is the author of the chapbook Reveler (Argos Books 2013). His writings have appeared (or are forthcoming) in the Boston Review, the Brooklyn Rail, Conjunctions, Maggy, and elsewhere. He is an associate editor of Conjunctions and lives in New York City.

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The Highwaymen NYC #9
Saturday, January 26th 2013 @ 7pm – 10pm
Fort Useless, 36 Ditmars Street, Brooklyn, NY

Chapbooks available at reading
<>

*Special guest & past Highwaymen NYC contributor Lisa Marie Basile will present excerpts from her new manuscript fated for publication in 2013. TRISTE: MORNING STORIES is about “A place of gladioli, trinkets, boys named Matthew who suck in bed, obsession over ankles and wrists, clawfoot tubs, boys named Benjamin with beautiful overbites, grappa miel, Monica Bellucci sex appeal, the male gaze & broken families.”

Adam Fitzgerald is a founding editor of the poetry journal Maggy, and received his MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts in Poetry. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in A Public Space, Boston Review, Conjunctions, The Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. He teaches at Rutgers University and The New School. His debut collection of poetry, The Late Parade, will be published by W. W. Norton’s Liveright imprint in June 2013. He lives in the East Village.

Monica McClure hosts Atlas, the monthly reading series in conjunction with The Atlas Review held at 61 Local. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Los Angeles Review, The Lit Review, Lambda Literary Review Online, Loaded Bicycle, Indigest, and elsewhere. She teaches in the English Department at Bloomfield College and lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Ted Dodson is the co-founder and editor of the filmed journal On the Escape, a curator for the Triptych Reading Series, and an editor and the program director for Futurepoem. Select publications can be found in The Death and Life of American Cities, la fovea, SET, Tim, and Well Greased, and an untitled chapbook is forthcoming from Diez in early 2013.

Samantha Zighelboim recently received her MFA from Columbia University. Her poems, translations, and book reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Ragazine, Thethepoetry Blog, Maggy, Thumbnail, BOMB, Rattapallax, and The People’s Poetry Project. Currently she’s working on her first collection of poems, and lives in New York City with her cat, Buddha. She teaches English and Creative Writing at Mercy College.

Lisa Marie Basile is an MFA candidate at The New School. She is the author of Andalucia (Brothel Books.) A Decent Voodoo (Cervena Barva) and Triste (Dancing Girl Press) are both forthcoming in 2012. Her work can be seen inWord Riot, PANK, kill author, Moon Milk Review, elimae & Pear Noir!among other publications. She is the founding editor of Brooklyn-based Patasola Press & the Patasola Review, and was a reader for Weave Magazine. She is a managing member of The Poetry Society of New York. She is a identity/background writer by day.

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A Shitluck Reading
Saturday, January 26th, 2013 @ 8:30pm
Tip Top Bar & Grill, 432 Franklin Avenue, New York, NY

Saturday January 26th Shitluck is back with another night of poetry, hot jams, and beers with napkins tucked in to the bottles.

Readings by
Katie Byrum
Polly Bresnick
Andrew Durbin
Christie Ann Reynolds

“The best poetry reading series in Bed-Stuy, if not Brooklyn, if not America!”–everybody.

Come see the magic for yourself!

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This Week in NYC: Featured Readings

Sunday, January 6th, 2013

Feng Sun Chen - Butcher's TreeEvery Sunday, Coldfront features five upcoming, cross-borough NYC readings. Here’s this week’s picks.

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The Poetry Project: Feng Sun Chen & Ken L. Walker
Monday, January 7th, 2013 @ 8pm
St. Marks Church, 131 E. 10th Street, New York, NY

Feng Sun Chen’s first book is Butcher’s Tree (Black Ocean). She is currently a graduate assistant and MFA candidate at the university of Minnesota. Other publications include chapbooks Ugly Fish, blud, and Paul Thek.

Ken L. Walker still carries a Kentucky driver’s license in his wallet even though he has lived in Brooklyn and Queens for the past five years. His criticism and poetry can be found in the Boxcar, the Poetry Project Newsletter, Lumberyard, The Wolf, Crab Orchard Review, La Fovea, Washington Square, The Seattle Review, and The Brooklyn Rail. He curates and produces Cosmot.

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LPR: The Book Report Reading
Tuesday, January 08, 2013 @ 7pm
(le) poisson rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, New York, NY

Once upon a time you were in third grade and you had to give book reports and it was awesome. The Book Report promises to deliver exactly what it promises: reports on books by the people who’ve read them. Join Leigh Stein and Sasha Fletcher and assorted literate guests for an evening that will remind you of 3rd grade in the best possible way.

Kevin Carter has published work in Kerouac’s Dog Magazine, Divine Dirt Quarterly, The Fiction Circus, and 2600 Magazine. His first collection of short stories, Lives of the Saints, was published by The Fiction Circus in March 2012. He is the host of a monthly multimedia literary reading at Happy Ending Lounge called Derangement of the Senses. He lives and plays the laser harp in Brooklyn.

Miracle Jones is a novelist from Texas. He helps Kevin Carter run “Derangement of the Senses.” When he was in elementary school, he always looked down on the kids who chose to do their book reports on “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, but now he totally respects them.

Leah Umansky’s first book of poems, Domestic Uncertainties, is available now from BlazeVOX Books. She has her MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and has been a contributing writer for BOMB Magazine’s BOMBLOG, a poetry reviewer for The Rumpus and a live twit for The Best American Poetry Blog. Her poems can be found in such journals as: Barrow Street, Catch-up and Cream City Review. She is also the Host/Curator of COUPLET. Read more at her blog.

hosts:

Leigh Stein is the author of four chapbooks of poetry and one novel, The Fallback Plan, newly released from Melville House. You can listen to an excerpt of The Fallback Plan here.

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 WE WILL BE UPSTAIRS IN THE CLOUDS [ml press 2010] and a couple of poetry chapbooks.

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Happy Birthday, Robert Duncan
Wednesday, January 9th, 2013 @ 8pm
The Poetry Project, 131 e. 10th Street, New York, NY

With the recent releases of Duncan’s H.D. Book and Robert Duncan: The Ambassador From Venus, A Biography, we wanted to take the opportunity to celebrate Duncan’s 94th birthday (b. January 7, 1919). Special guests who will read their favorite Duncan poems will be: Lisa Jarnot, David Levi Strauss, Kimberly Lyons, Mary Margaret Sloan, Anne Waldman, Tom Savage, and Pierre Joris. There will be cake in the shape of the cosmos.

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Marosa di Giorgio’s Diadem: Selected Poems
Start: 01/11/2013 7:00 pm
Viernes 11 de Enero, 7pm
McNally Jackson, 52 Prince St, New York, NY

Bilingual English-Spanish

Adam Giannelli’s poetry and translations have appeared in the Kenyon Review, New England Review, Iowa Review, New American Writing, Field, The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Italian Poetry, and elsewhere. He is currently is a Brown-Neff Fellow in literature and creative writing at the University of Utah.

Marosa di Giorgio was born in Salto, Uruguay, in 1932. Descended from Italian immigrants of Tuscan origin, she and her sister, Nidia, were raised Catholics in the countryside. Her first book, Poemas, was published in 1953. Also a theatre actress in the 1950s-1960s, she participated in almost thirty productions. In 1978, after the death of her father, she moved to Montevideo, where she lived until she died of cancer in 2004. Like Walt Whitman, di Giorgio expanded the same work throughout her career: Los Papeles Salvajes, her collected poetry which unites fourteen books. Since her poems inhabit the same imaginative world, they can be read as one long meditation, which di Giorgio described as a forest in which she planted more trees. Her newly translated Diadem: Selected Poems is now available in the BOA Bookstore.

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The Portable Boog Reader 6: NYC & Philly
Saturday, January 12th, 2013 @ 7pm
Unnameable Books, 600 Vanderbilt Ave., Brooklyn, NY

With readings from PBR6 contributors.

N.Y.C. POETS:
Stephen Boyer – Laura Henriksen - Justin Petropoulos – J. Hope Stein – Jennifer Tamayo

PHILADELPHIA POETS:
Andrea Applebee * Jen Marie Macdonald * Travis Macdonald

AND MUSIC FROM:
Kat Quinn

Curated and hosted by Portable Boog Reader 6 N.Y.C. editors: Lee Ann Brown, Mariana Ruiz Firmat, Sara Jane Stoner, and David Kirschenbaum, and Philadelphia editors: Kimberly Ann Southwick and Michelle Taransky. Hosted and curated by Boog City editor and publisher David Kirschenbaum.

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Want to share a reading? Email stephanie.whited [at] gmail.com.

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This Week in NYC: Featured Readings

Sunday, November 18th, 2012

pic-real-charactersSundays, Coldfront features 5 upcoming cross-borough readings in NYC.
 
 

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Real Characters
Monday, November 19th, 2012 @ 7-8:45pm
McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince St, New York, NY

Real Characters is back for its last show of 2012 on a special night at McNally Jackson. Come see hilarious readings by:

AJ Jacobs (author of Drop Dead Healthy & The Year of Living Biblically)
David Rees (Get Your War On, author of How to Sharpen Pencils)
Anna Goldfarb (author of Clearly I Didn’t Think This Through)
and
Courtney Maum (Electric Literature, Slice Magazine, Literary Death Match)

Hosted by Andy Ross. Produced by Ann Marie Lonsdale.

Are you kidding me with that lineup? Am I kidding you? No, neither of us is kidding the other about that lineup.

Note: Normally, the show is every second Wednesday of the month, but this one falls on a Monday. Fun, right? Now all of you with regular Wednesday commitments can come and stop being sad. Don’t be sad, you guys!
It’s not your fault.
[Softly, still staring off] I know…
No you don’t. It’s not your fault.
[Serious] I know.
No. Listen to me, son. It’s not your fault.
I know that.
It’s not your fault.
[Silent, eyes closed]
It’s not your fault.
Don’t fuck with me, Sean. Not you.
It’s not your fault.
Oh my God! I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry, Sean!

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Urbana Slam 2.3 Featuring Sam Sax
Tuesday, November 20th, 2012 @ 6:30pm
Bar 82, 136 2nd Ave., New York, NY

Sam Sax is the first ever Bay Area Unified Grand Slam Champion and Oakland’s first two-time queer Grand Slam Champion. He curates ‘the new sh!t show’, a reading series in San Francisco and is the poetry curator for The Modern Times Bookstore.

Proof of slam: http://samhsax.wix.com/samsax#!media/c3c1

The night will go as follows

6:30 sign up
7:00 open mic
7:30 feature
8:10: Slam
9:30 world war cute III

21+ to get in/ 8 dollars/ 5 dollars with a student I.D.
twitter @urbanaslam
#samsaxisthatdudeb

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The Organic Open Mic
Tuesday, November 20th, 2012 @ 7-11pm
Bareburger, 2nd floor, 85 Second Avenue (@ 5th Street), New York, NY

Looking for special – and very unique – open mic in downtown Manhattan?

The Organic Open Mic at the gorgeous Bareburger organic restaurant in the East Village – the home of some of the best tasting food on the planet!

Produced by the long-running Inspired Word open mic series, which has featured Grammy winners, American Idol finalists, Golden Globe Award winners, Emmy nominated actors, and HBO Def Poetry stars, this open mic is open to ALL types of performing artists – comedians, musicians, storytellers, singers, poets, fiction/nonfiction writers, playwrights, spoken word artists, performance artists, dancers.

Hosted by Selena Coppock.

The event takes place on the second floor, with full-length windows on all sides that offers the most beautiful view.

25 slots, 6-minute time limit, 7pm-11pm.

No age limit. Doors open for open mic sign-up @ 7pm. Show starts @ 7:30pm. Cover charge: $10.

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pic-makebelieve-thebookUtopia Poetics
Wednesday, November 20th, 2012 @ 11am-12pm
Conference Room
The Institute for Writing Studies
St. Augustine Library, St. John’s University, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Queens, NY

Caitlin Scholl is a writer and artist originally hailing from the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. She holds a BA inEnvironmental Studies from the University of Vermont, and an MFA inCreative Writing from Naropa University. Her first novel, Mocemoce, NaVanua (The Land Abiding), was published in 2006 by IPS Press in theFijiIslands. Makebelieve, published by UNO Press, is her second book. Her writing has appeared in Sonic Eclectic, Edna, r(e)volve, manifestanimists, Adirondack Life Magazine, not enough night, and is forthcoming in The Spirit of Black Mountain College (a book anthologyfrom Lorimer Press). She also tinkers away on experimental filmshorts, photographic journals, songwriting, and withacrylic oncanvas.

Caitlin has worked as a teacher, editor, and horticulturist, and presently writes and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Utopia Poetics is sponsored by the St. John’s University Department of English and the Institute for Writing Studies

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc. through public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

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Rhyming Poets International
Saturday, November 24th, 2012 @ 2 pm
Hudson Park Library, 66 Leroy St, Downstairs, Greenwich Village, NY
Free

A reading of all kinds of poetry, songs and music.

Featured Poets: Ravi Shankar, Dr. Swapan Basu et al.

A moth undergoes metamorphosis,
To become a beautiful butterfly.
Rhyming Poets make melodies.
So, why don’t you give it a try?’ – S. Basu.

Rhyming Poetry is the mother of all songs. It calms agitated minds even in adults. It takes extra effort but not talent.

We want to revive the fine art, sharpen skills. If you are new we will help you. We read, revise and rhyme. We discuss different styles and read famous examples. We learn from famous poets and each other. We celebrate Birth Day of a famous poet each month.

Join us to expose your talent, get feedback, learn and have fun. All stylers are welcome. Singers, performers are welcome. We are inviting funded featured poets to read and conduct a workshop.

We videotape and telecast. We were telecasted by East Brunswick Cable and Time Warner, Cablevision of NYC. We have members from 22 US states and Canada, UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Slovakia and India. We are on Facebook and video clips are at youtube.com/SBRhyme. So join us.

We publish a webzine, Flute and hold an Annual Rhyming Poetry Contest. Please download directions from the file section and participate.

Sponsored by NYSCA, Poets & Writers

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–Stephanie Ann Whited

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This Week in NYC: Featured Readings

Sunday, November 4th, 2012

Every Sunday, Coldfront features 5 upcoming cross-borough readings in NYC. The trains are working and ready to chauffeur you to this week’s readings.
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Poetry Project
Emily Abendroth & Shane McCrae
Monday, November 5th, 2012 @ 8 pm
St. Marks Church, 131 E 10th St, New York, NY

Poets will be reading work from their most recent collections.

Sponsored by The Poetry Project at St. Marks Church.
 

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White SwallowThe White Swallow Reading Series presents: Michael Dickman, Dorothea Lasky, Brenda Shaughnessy, & Susan Wheeler
Tuesday, November 7, 2012 @ 6-7:30pm
Cornelia Street Cafe (downstairs), 29 Cornelia Street, New York, NY
$8.00 (includes a free drink)

The White Swallow Reading Series: Poets Michael Dickman, Dorothea Lasky, Brenda Shaughnessy, and Susan Wheeler read from their recent new books of poetry at Cornelia Street Cafe.

Michael Dickman‘s first collection, The End of the West, was published in 2009 by Copper Canyon Press. He is also the co-author of the forthcoming 50 American Plays from Copper Canyon Press. His second collection of poetry, Flies (Copper Canyon Press, 2011), received the 2010 James Laughlin Award. He has received fellowships from the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas, the Fine Arts Work Center, and the Vermont Studio Center, and he won the 2008 Narrative Prize. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, Field, Tin House, Narrative Magazine and others. He has been profiled in Poets & Writers and The New Yorker, with his twin brother, poet Matthew Dickman.

Dorothea Lasky is the author of three full-length collections of poetry: Thunderbird (Wave Books, 2012), Black Life (Wave Books, 2010), and AWE (Wave Books, 2007). She is also the author of six chapbooks: Matter: A Picturebook (Argos Books, 2012), The Blue Teratorn (Yes Yes Books, 2012), Poetry is Not a Project (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010), Tourmaline (Transmission Press, 2008), The Hatmaker’s Wife (2006), Art (H_NGM_N Press, 2005), and Alphabets and Portraits (Anchorite Press, 2004). Born in St. Louis in 1978, her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, The Laurel Review, MAKE magazine, Phoebe, Poets & Writers Magazine, The New Yorker, Tin House, The Paris Review, and 6×6, among other places.

Brenda Shaughnessy’s most recent collection of poetry is Our Andromeda, (Copper Canyon Press, September 2012.) She’s also the author of Human Dark with Sugar, which was a finalist for the 2008 NBCC Award, and Interior with Sudden Joy. Her poems have appeared in Harpers, McSweeney’s, The Nation, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Slate.com and elsewhere. She is Poetry Editor-At-Large at Tin House Magazine, and is Assistant Professor of English and in the M.F.A. Program at Rutgers-Newark.
Susan Wheeler is the author of a novel, Record Palace, and six books of poetry, Bag ‘o’ Diamonds, Smokes, Source Codes, Ledger, Assorted Poems and Meme, which is shortlisted for the 2012 National Book Award in poetry. Her awards include the Witter Bynner Prize for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her work has appeared in ten editions of Best American Poetry, as well as in The Paris Review, New American Writing, Talisman, The New Yorker and many other journals. She teaches at Princeton University, where she directs the creative writing program.

Hosted by Angelo Nikolopoulos
 

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UrbanaUrbana Poetry Slam
Tuesday, November 6th, 2012 @ 7pm
Bar 82, 136 Second Ave (btw. 9th & St. Marks), New York, NY

Featuring Ethan Rivera.

Break down:
6:30pm – Sign up for open mic and/or slam
7:00pm – Short open mic
7:30pm – Feature
8:10 – Slam starts
9:30 – Adventure Time Marathon

21+ , $8/$5 with student ID

Follow us at @urbanaslam on twitter

 

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VIDAVIDA Cocktail Party
Thursday, November 9th, 2012 @ 5 pm
Lillian Vernon Creative Writing House, 58 West 10th Street, New York, NY
 
A meet-and-greet for writers, addressing how they can become more involved with VIDA. Special guests include Lucie Brock-Broido, Sarah Gambito, and Deborah Landau.

VIDA welcomes an array of female writers who, respectively, serve as faculty to local MFA programs and administrate non-profit organizations supporting underrepresented writers. Emerging writers interested in joining in critical discourse that addresses the lack of gender parity in publishing are encouraged to join this conversation. What obstacles do female writers presently face? What opportunities are ours to embrace?

VIDA Members and Guests to be present:

· Cate Marvin (Co-Founder, VIDA)

· Amy King (The Count, VIDA)

· Rosebud Ben-Oni (HER KIND, VIDA)

· Becca Klaver (Events, VIDA)

· Rebecca Godfrey (Columbia)­

· Lucie Brock-Broido (Columbia)

· Deborah Landau (NYU)

· Helen Schulman (New School)

· Melissa Febos (Sarah Lawrence)

· Elizabeth Hornig (Brooklyn)

· Camille Rankine (Mahattanville)

· Jan Heller-Levi (Hunter)

· Sarah Gambito (Kundiman)

· Alison Meyers and Hafizah Geter (Cave Canem)

Brief presentations from VIDA’s guests along with a Q and A will be followed by informal conversation and merriment among those who actively desire to create a literary climate more inclusive of work by female writers.

Sponsored by NYU Creative Writing Program, VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts
 

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Patricia JonesWomen Writers of the Diaspora: Patricia Spears Jones
Thursday, November 8th, 2012 @ 6:30 pm
Hirshon Suite, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor, New York, NY
Free; reservations required at 212.229.5615 or NSPE301@newschool.edu

Arkansas-born Patricia Spear Jones lives and works in NYC as a poet, editor, anthologist, teacher and former program coordinator for the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church and the theater collective, Mabou Mines.  Jones, a 2012 recipient of The New York Community Trust’s Oscar Williams and Gene Derwood Award, has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New, York Foundation for the Arts, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Goethe Institute for travel and research in Germany.  She was selected for The Pip Gertrude Stein Prize Awards for Innovative Poetry in English, and received an honorable mention for the Ann Sexton Poetry Prize.  Her poem, “Beuys and the Blonde” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  Jones is the author of Femme du Monde, The Weather That Kills, Painkiller, and Swimming to America, and the co-editor of Ordinary Women: Poems by New York City Women.

This series celebrates the literature written by women across the African Diaspora (African-American, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latina, Afro-European, Afro-Asian, and continental African). Past readers include Opal Palmer Adisa, Jacqueline Bishop, Pamela Booker, Merle Collins, Carole Boyce Davies, Bridget Davis, Monica A. Hand, Ifeona Fulani, Linda Susan Jackson, Pamela Jackson, Tayari Jones, Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa, Diana McCaulay, Rosalind McLymont, and Tiphanie Yanique.

The series is moderated by Celesti Colds Fechter, associate dean for Academic Services at The New School for Public Engagement.
 

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Poets for PetsPoets for Pets – Thanksgiving Reading
Sunday, November 11th, 2012 @ 7pm
Jimmy’s No. 43, 43 East 7 St, New York, NY

Readers:

Dana Bryant grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She made her poetry debut in 1991; in 1995, she released her first book of poems, SONG OF THE SIREN (Boulevard Books/Putnam Berkeley) and the following year her debut solo album, WISHING FROM THE TOP on Warner Bros. Records. She has performed in Europe and Japan with artists such as Speech (of Arrested Development), Zap Mama, PM Dawn, and Ronnie Jordan.

Sharon Dolin’s new book of poems, WHIRLWIND, is out this fall from the University of Pittsburgh Press. Her previous book, BURN AND DODGE (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008), won the AWP Donald Hall Prize in Poetry. Currently she is a Visiting Professor at Hofstra University and teaches at the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y. She lives in Manhattan with her teenage son and 7-year-old Brussels Griffon named Sono.

Marcella Durand is the author of TRAFFIC & WEATHER (Futurepoem), AREA (Belladonna) and WESTERN CAPITAL RHAPSODIES (Faux Press). She recently completed a new collection, THE PROSPECT, and is now working on a book-length Alexandrine, titled (for now) IN THIS WORLD OF 12 MONTHS.

Barbara Henning is a poet and fiction writer. She teaches for Naropa University and Long Island University in Brooklyn, where she is Professor Emerita. Her most recent books are a collection of poetry and prose, CITIES & MEMORY (Chax Press); a novel, THIRTY MILES FROM ROSEBUD (BlazeVox); a collection of object-sonnets, MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY (United Artists); and a book of interviews, LOOKING UP HARRYETTE MULLEN (Belladonna). Forthcoming is A SWIFT PASSAGE from Quale Press and A Slow Curve, from Monkey Puzzle Press. Barbara grew up in Detroit and has lived in New York City since 1983.

Hosted by Martine Bellen.

Suggested donation $10. All money will be donated to the Glen Wild Animal Rescue.

RSVP on facebook.
 

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–Stephanie Ann Whited

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Snapshot: Chet Weise, Founder of Poetry Sucks!

Monday, October 29th, 2012

Poet, musician, and adjunct professor Chet Weise is the founder of Poetry Sucks!, Nashville’s “Best New Literary Event.” A first-timer to this hybrid reading slash live music event this month at the Southern Festival of Books, I had difficulty imagining how multiple bands and poets could share a single stage in an organized, timely, and enjoyable manner. Poetry Sucks! manages them all with a celebratory, inclusive ease.

SW: Poetry Sucks! was named the Writers’ Choice Best New Literary Event by the Nashville Scene and calls out the series’ “drunken poetic realism.” What were your expectations/goals for the series? Have they been met or have you encountered any problems with constructing this reality?

CW: Before every Poetry Sucks! I go through a litany promising myself to avoid cocktails, cigarettes, etc. Nevertheless, the morning-after-soul-crushing hangover always reminds of my weaknesses. Still, that’s part of what I hope for with the series. Attendees should be able to come and have a good time enjoying the experience of language just as they would a rock n roll show, or a friend’s cookout, or a movie night with pizza and beer.

The bar–Dino’s– where we usually hold the event certainly helps convey the message with its yellow tar stained walls, domestics only beer list, its long history of local punk rock and country shows, and all the rats– figuratively and literally — that pass through its doors. (RIP “Little Ricky”: they finally offed the big rat.)

SW: Every event breaks from the poetry with live music, which I found as a high-quality enhancement. What was the motivation behind this? Although it’s common for poets to present 5-10 minutes, this is rare for musicians (understandably so, considering the time necessary to manage equipment). Has there been any hesitation from bands to participate?

Dino's

CW: Mixing music and language serves several purposes. First, it’s the ginger (aka gari) to cleanse the palate between sushi rolls. Readings are about listening. At a good reading, a sort of hypnosis occurs. However, that hypnosis, if too long, could turn into negative-droning a la Charlie Brown’s teacher in the Peanuts’ cartoons. Having music breaks up the night. It’s variety for the ears and also allows a few minutes for people to speak to one another. And, having music brings more people to the reading. Many nights this results in music lovers being exposed to poetry for the first time and getting turned on to it and vice versa.

As far as the music performers themselves and Poetry Sucks!, there’s been a very interesting subplot to the series regarding musicians and their “side-projects” or “solo stuff” and/or “experimental sets.” Many of the musicians participate because the event is a great opportunity to try something new or different.

SW: As a musician (The Ultras S/C), poet, and teacher, you can relate to the situation of many cross-genre artists in NYC and nationwide. Do you see a central focus in your efforts or do you watch yourself switching between each, more monocularly? Do you think there’s something about Nashville that’s contributed to your success?

CW: Many are surprised to hear I was also a former economics teacher at Auburn University! But, that’s something I’ve always been bewildered by. This sort of cultural specialization or typecasting or division of labor that seems to pervade modern society irks me. Leonardo da Vinci learned the human form that he painted so well via his medical experiments performing autopsies. Also, William Carlos Williams was a doctor. T.S. Eliot a banker. . . and Mick Jagger attended the London School of Economics. The list goes on. Too many of America’s fathers, mothers, and teachers tell us: you’re inclined to be an engineer, you’re the type to be a businessman, or you have the mind of an artist. That’s crap. We’re all businessmen and artists. It’s just a matter on which we want to spend more time and effort.

Nowadays I spend more time on poetry, but I do play in a band called The Ultras S/C. In the past, I played in The Quadrajets and The Immortal Lee County Killers. If anyone is familiar with these groups, then they know these groups toured in used vans, rented U-Hauls, and slept on strangers’ floors next to their kitty litter boxes all over the world (NYC was a regular stop).

I model the Poetry Sucks! night after my experiences in punk rock. I don’t know any other way, really. Each poet and/or musician gets a slot to perform a short set, then the next performer comes on, then the next, etc. I always make sure, too, to mix it up between travelling, published readers (ie touring, signed bands) and local, unpublished readers (unsigned, neighborhood band). This helps draw more of a crowd and provides a spark of spontaneity to the night. Everyone knows the inexperienced reader/band can often times blow-away the “bigger” name or, in some cases, completely fall apart on stage. More importantly, keeping the local, unpublished writers involved builds community and excitement around reading, listening and language. That’s what Poetry Sucks! has really been about. Almost any crappy punk rock band can find a venue to perform their first gig. Poets, at least in the areas I’ve lived, many times only have a chance read to themselves. I hope a DIY/house party culture will continue to grow for language. ‘Zines et al started the on the right path a few years ago.

Okay. I might have digressed from your question(s). Regarding crossover, I consider poetry to be a form of music. The reason many times song lyrics starve on the page alone by themselves is because they’ve been divorced from the other voices in their poem: songs are poems with multiple, simultaneous voices. Take away the voice of the guitar, then you’ve taken away alot of the tone and metaphor from the poem. On the other hand, a poem is song for a single, more detailed voice. It’s closer to a capella renditions by Son House or Leadbelly. When I write a poem, many times I put myself in the mind of a musician. Many times when I write a song, I put myself in the mind of a poet.

Being in Nashville really brings this all home– the mixing, blending, co-dependence, morphing, ying-yanging, of personalities, arts, and professions. It’s cool to see it all come together in a charming dive bar. Everyone loves partying with rats.

 

–Stephanie Ann Whited

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This Week in NYC: Featured Readings

Sunday, September 16th, 2012

Debut Book Battle MicEvery Sunday Coldfront features five upcoming cross-borough readings in NYC. This week includes picks from the Brooklyn Book Festival 2012.

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Late Night Library’s Debut Book Battle
Brooklyn Book Festival 2012 Bookend Event
Wednesday, September 19, 2012 @ 7:30pm
Goodbye Blue Monday, 1087 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY


The Debut Book Battle will feature New York City-based writers reading from poetry or fiction featured on Late Night Library’s monthly podcast series about authors’ recently published first books. Like Late Night Library’s podcast series, the Debut Book Battle, positions writers as advocates for books they care about. It is a free event.

Themes will be named by the audience, and podcast hosts will then select and read poetry or prose from their episode that best matches that theme—like an impromptu, interactive “slam” with readers using the work of early-career writers that they admire as material. Poet Timothy Donnelly will serve as master of ceremonies.

Writers represented and reading include:

John Murillo and Camille Rankine reading from Marcus Jackson’s poetry collection, Neighborhood Register (CavanKerry Press, 2011), which will be featured on Late Night Library’s special Cave Canem episode in October 2012

Sam Ross reading from Lysley Tenorio’s collection of short stories, Monstress (Ecco, 2012), featured by Late Night Library in July 2012

W. M. Lobko reading from Deanna Fei’s novel, A Thread of Sky (Penguin Press, 2010), featured by Late Night Library in July 2011

Erin Hoover reading from Kara Candito’s poetry collection, Taste of Cherry (University of Nebraska Press, 2009), featured on Late Night Library’s premiere podcast in April 2011

Late Night Library is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting talented writers early in their careers. Programs include a series of podcast about debut titles,podcast conversations with cultural innovators, events that connect diverse literary communities, and a virtual network of writers and readers. Founded in 2011, Late Night Library is based in Brooklyn, New York, and Portland, Oregon.

More information about the Brooklyn Book Festival and Bookends can be found at www.brooklynbookfestival.org.

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Mixer Reading and Music Series
Wednesday, September 19, 2012 @ 7:00pm until 9:00pm
Cakeshop, 152 Ludlow St., New York, NY

With readings by:

Lydia Conklin is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Astraea Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, the James Merrill House, the Sitka Center and Harvard University. Her fiction has appeared in Narrative Magazine, New Letters, The New Orleans Review and elsewhere, and she has drawn comics for Gulf Coast, Salt Hill and the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. She holds an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Diana Spechler is the author of the novels Who by Fire and Skinny, and of articles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, GQ, Esquire, New York Magazine, Slate, Salon, and elsewhere. A four-time Moth StorySLAM winner, she teaches writing in New York City and for Stanford University’s Online Writer’s Studio.

Kirstin Valdez Quade teaches at Stanford University, where she is a Jones Lecturer and a former Wallace Stegner and Truman Capote Fellow. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, Bread Loaf, and the MacDowell Colony. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere.

Heidi Julavits is the author of novels The Vanishers, The Uses of Enchantment, The Mineral Palace, and The Effect of Living Backwards. She is a founding editor of Believer, and her writings have appeared in Esquire, Time, The New York Times, & McSweeney’s among other places. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, she lives in Manhattan and Maine, and teaches at Columbia University.

Music by:

Joe Moore is part of the trio known as Powderhörn, along with Mark Boquist and Josh Walker. Their first set of compositions surfaced as a loose meditation on nautical themes, most likely inspired by the generous helpings of cymbal swells and delay pedals heard all over early rehearsal tapes. After their unofficial debut gig in Brooklyn last year, a patron was quoted as saying, “You guys sound like…..pre-90s”. No one had any idea what that meant but they took it as a compliment anyway.

With your hosts: Melissa Febos and Rebecca Keith

https://www.facebook.com/Mixerreadings

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Symbiosis: An Evening of Asian and Asian American Poetry
September 20th, 2012 @ 7pm – 8:30pm
The Museum of Chinese in America, 215 Centre St, New York, NY 

The Poetry Society of America—the nation’s oldest poetry organization—presents Symbiosis, an evening of readings combined with a dynamic panel discussion on the exchange of influence between early modern Asian poets, modern American poets, and contemporary Asian American poets.

Featuring readings by poets Monica Ferrell, Kimiko Hahn, Timothy Liu, and Angela Veronica Wong, this event highlights the historic, transnational dialogue across generations between two continents, and considers the importance of this exchange in today’s literary landscape. The poets will further discuss the sacred in Asian American culture as articulated in American poetry at the Maya Lin-designed Museum of Chinese in America. Presented by the Poetry Society of America in association with the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA).

Admission: Free RSVP to programs@mocanyc.org

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The Brooklyn Poets Reading Series
Brooklyn Book Festival 2012 Bookend Event
Friday, September 21st, 2012 @ 7pm
Studio 10, 56 Bogart Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 

Eduardo C. Corral is the author of Slow Lightning, selected by Carl Phillips as winner of the 2011 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition and published by Yale University Press in 2012. His poems have appeared in New England Review, Ploughshares and Poetry, as well as many other journals and anthologies. He is the winner of a Discovery/The Nation award and a Whiting Writers’ Award and has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. He holds an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers Workshop and has served as the Olive B. O’Connor Fellow in Creative Writing at Colgate University and the Philip Roth Resident in Creative Writing at Bucknell University. He lives in New York.

Ariana Reines’s books of poetry include The Cow (2006), which won the Alberta Prize from Fence Books; Coeur de Lion (2007); and Mercury (2011). Her poems have been anthologized in Gurlesque (2010) and Against Expression (2011). Known for her interest in bodily experience, the occult, new media, and the possibilities of the long or book-length form, Reines has been described as “one of the crucial voices of her generation” by Michael Silverblatt on NPR’s Bookworm. Reines’s first play Telephone (2009) was performed at the Cherry Lane Theater and received two Obie Awards. A re-imagining of its second act was featured as part of the Guggenheim’s Works+Process series in 2009, and the script was published in Play: A Journal of Plays in 2010. Reines’s translations include a version of Baudelaire’s My Heart Laid Bare (2009); Jean-Luc Hennig’s The Little Black Book of Grisélidis Réal: Days and Nights of an Anarchist Whore (2009); and Tiqqun’s Preliminary Materials Toward a Theory of the Young-Girl (2012). Reines has taught at Columbia University and the European Graduate School, and was the Roberta C. Holloway Lecturer in Poetry at the University of California-Berkeley in 2009, the youngest poet ever to hold that position. She has traveled to Haiti multiple times as part of the on-going relief efforts there.

Timothy Donnelly is the author of Twenty-seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit (Grove, 2003) and The Cloud Corporation (Wave, 2010), winner of the 2012 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His poems have been widely anthologized and translated, appearing in such periodicals as A Public Space, Fence, Harper’s, The Iowa Review, jubilat, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. He has served as poetry editor of Boston Review since 1996. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the New York State Writers Institute and was recently the Theodore H. Holmes ’51 and Bernice Holmes Visiting Professor at Princeton University’s Program in Creative Writing. He is on the permanent faculty of the Writing Program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts and lives in Brooklyn with this wife and two daughters.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc. through public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.

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A Caribbean Literary Lime
Brooklyn Book Festival 2012 Bookend Event
Friday, September 21st, 2012 @ 7pm
St. Francis College, Maroney Theatre, 180 Remsen St, Brooklyn, NY
A book party with a decidedly easy tropical flare. The Poets & Passion platform provides an inviting opportunity for audiences to engage Caribbean and Caribbean American fiction writers and poets and positions the writers’ work as part of a larger conversation on issues of identity, aspiration, heritage and the immigrant experience. (From Brooklyn Heights Blog)
Lineup for Poets & Passion includes Trinidad and Tobago-born novelist, playwright, and educator Earl Lovelace, biographer Christopher John Farley, award-winning poet David Mills and poet and educator Samantha Thornhill.

A book signing and reception follows the panel discussion.

The program is dedicated to late Trinidadian novelist Rosa Guy and the 100th anniversary of Jamaican-born poet Claude McKay’s debut publication, “Songs of Jamaica.”

 

–Stephanie Ann Whited

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