For upcoming programs, visit our Events Page HERE.

Bianca Stone leads a thinking-and-reading-through of Larry Levis

On Thursday, April 4, 2024, Ron Silliman led a thinking-through of "Ghazal" by Larry Levis followed by a short reading of her own work.

Bianca Stone is the author of the poetry collections What is Otherwise Infinite (Tin House, 2022), The Möbius Strip Club of Grief (Tin House, 2018), Someone Else’s Wedding Vows (Octopus Books and Tin House, 2014) and collaborated with Anne Carson on the illuminated version of Antigonick (New Directions, 2012). Her work has appeared in many magazines, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The Nation. She teaches classes on poetry and poetic study at the Ruth Stone House (501c3) where she is editor-at-large for Iterant magazine and host of Ode & Psyche Podcast.

Ron Silliman leads a thinking-and-reading-through of Charles Bernstein

On Thursday, April 4, 2024, Ron Silliman led a thinking-through of “All the Whiskey in Heaven” by Charles Berstein followed by a short reading of his own work.

Ron Silliman is an American poet and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written and edited over fifty (50) books and has had his poetry and criticism translated into nineteen (19) languages. The most recent (forthcoming) is a Russian translation of You by Ivan Sokolov, which will be published in Petersburg, Russia later this year. He is often associated with language poetry. Silliman has worked as a political organizer, lobbyist, ethnographer, newspaper editor, director of development, and executive editor of the Socialist Review (US). Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wrote a single poem, The Alphabet. He has begun writing a new poem, Universe, the first section of which appears to be called Revelator.

t. liem leads a thinking-and-reading-through of Sawako Nakayasu

On Thursday, March 24, 2024, t. liem led a thinking-through of “Morning Song” by Sawako Nakayasu followed by a short reading of their own work.

t. liem is the author of Slows: Twice (Coach House 2023), and Obits. (Coach House, 2018), which was shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Award, and won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award as well as the A.M. Klein Prize. Their writing has been published in Apogee, Plenitude, The Boston Review, Grain, Maisonneuve, Catapult, The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, and elsewhere. They live in Montreal, Tio’Tia:ke, unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territories.

Rachelle Rahmé leads a thinking-and-reading-through of John Ashbery

On Thursday, February 8th, 2024 Rachelle Rahmé led a thinking-and-reading-through of “Sleeping in the Corners of Our Lives” by John Ashbery followed by a short reading of her own work.

Rachelle Rahmé is a Lebanese-American scholar interested in collaborative liberation methodologies. She was the recipient of the Poetry Project's 2021-2022 ESB Fellowship, and her poems and translations have been published in Fonograf, Fieldnotes, the tiny, and The Brooklyn Rail, among others. Rahmé holds a Masters in Philosophy from NSSR. She is currently an MFA Candidate in Literary Arts at Brown University.

Funto Omojolla leads a thinking-and-reading-through of Myung Mi Kim

On Thursday, February 8th, 2024 at 3–4pm (ET)—Funto Omojola led a thinking-and-reading-through of Myung Mi Kim's "[accumulation of land]," followed by a short reading of their own work.

Susan Wheeler leads a thinking-and-reading-through of Kamau Brathwaite

On Thursday, February 8th, 2024 at 3–4pm (ET)—Susan Wheeler led a thinking-and-reading-through of selections from Kamau Brathwaite’s “Mesongs,” followed by a short reading of his own work.

Susan Wheeler is the author of six books of poetry, including Meme, shortlisted for the National Book Award, and Assorted Poems. About her Chicago-based novel, Record Palace, Toni Morrison wrote, “Susan Wheeler’s deft touch and flawless ear have produced an irresistible work, both fresh and sage.” Wheeler teaches at Princeton University and lives in Philadelphia. [Photo credit: Mel Edelman]

Mark Wunderlich leads a thinking-and-reading-through of Diane Seuss

On Thursday, January 25th, 2024 at 3–4pm (ET)—Mark Wunderlich led a thinking-and-reading-through of Diane Seuss’ “Young Hare,” followed by a short reading of his own work.

Mark Wunderlich is the author of four books of poems, the most recent of which is God of Nothingness, published by Graywolf Press. His other books include The Earth Avails, which received the Rilke Prize, Voluntary Servitude, and The Anchorage, which received the Lambda Literary Award. He has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Amy Lowell Trust and elsewhere, and his work has been widely anthologized. He is Executive Director of the Bennington Writing Seminars graduate writing program and lives in Catskill, New York.

Michael Leong. leads a thinking-and-reading-through of Blanca Varela

On Friday, November 3rd, 3–4pm (ET)—Michael Leong led a thinking-and-reading-through of "Curriculum Vitae,” by Blanca Varela followed by a short reading of his own work.

Michael Leong's most recent books are Words on Edge (Black Square Editions, 2018), Contested Records: The Turn to Documents in Contemporary North American Poetry (University of Iowa Press, 2020), and Sky-Quake: Tremor of Heaven (co•im•press, 2020) a co-translation, with Ignacio Infante, of Vicente Huidobro’s operatic long poem. He is Robert P. Hubbard Assistant Professor of Poetry at Kenyon College.

Deborah Landau. leads a thinking-and-reading-through of Lisel Mueller

On Friday, October 20th, 3–4pm (ET)—Deborah Landau led a thinking-and-reading-through of "Curriculum Vitae,” by Lisel Mueller followed by a short reading of her own work.

Deborah Landau is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Skeletons (‘23). Her other books include Soft Targets (winner of The Believer Book Award), The Uses of the Body, and The Last Usable Hour, all Lannan Literary Selections from Copper Canyon Press, and Orchidelirium, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the Robert Dana Anhinga Prize for Poetry. In 2016 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. The Uses of the Body was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, and included on “Best of ″ lists by The New Yorker, Vogue, BuzzFeed, and O, The Oprah Magazine, among others. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, American Poetry Review, Poetry, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, The Yale Review, and The New York Times, and included in anthologies such as The Best American Poetry, Please Excuse This Poem: 100 New Poets for the Next Generation, Not for Mothers Only, Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now, The Best American Erotic Poems, and Women’s Work: Modern Poets Writing in English. [Photo: Jacqueline Mia Foster]

Stacy Szymaszek. leads a thinking-and-reading-through of Paul Blackburn

On Wednesday, September 20th, 3–4pm (ET)—Stacy Szymaszek led a thinking-and-reading-through of Paul Blackburn's "Journal: April 19: The Southern Tier,” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Stacy Szymaszek is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently The Pasolini Book (2022), and Famous Hermits (2023). Her most recent chapbook Three Novenas was published by auric books in 2022. She is the recipient of a 2014 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and a 2019 Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant in poetry. From 2007-2018 she was the Director of The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in NYC. She currently lives and works in the Hudson Valley.

Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr. leads a thinking-and-reading-through of John Peck

On Wednesday, September 20th, 3–4pm (ET)—Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr. led a thinking-and-reading-through of "Canto 19" by John Peck, followed by a short reading of her own work.

Hoa Nguyen leads a thinking-and-reading-through of Gerrit Lansing

On Thursday, September 7, 3–4pm (ET)—Hoa Nguyen led a thinking-and-reading-through of "How We Sizzled in the Pasture" by Gerrit Lansing, followed by a short reading of her own work.

Hoa Nguyen is a poet, educator, and member of the collective She Who Has No Masters, a project of multi-voiced collectivity, hybrid poetics, encounters, in-between spaces, and (dis)places of the Vietnamese diaspora. Her books include Red Juice: Poems 1998 - 2008 and the Griffin Prize-nominated Violet Energy Ingots. Her latest collection of poems, A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure was a finalist for a 2021 National Book Award, the General Governor’s Literary Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award.  Currently, she teaches at the Milton Avery School for Fine Arts at Bard College and Toronto Metropolitan University. She’s an Aquarius and a Fire Horse. [Photo: CA Conrad]

Brian Teare leads a thinking-and-reading-through of Oliver Baez Bendorf

On Thursday, June 15th, 2023, 3–4pm (ET)—Brian Teare led a thinking-and-reading-through of "Bone Dust" by Oliver Baez Bendorf, followed by a short reading of his own work.

Gillian Conoley leads a close reading of Lisa Robertson

On Thursday, June 8th, 2023, 3–4pm (ET)—Gillian Conoley led a thinking-and-reading-through of "The Present/" by Lisa Robertson, followed by a short reading of her own work.

GILLIAN CONOLEY is a poet, editor, and translator. Her new collection, Notes from the Passenger, is just out from Nightboat Books. The author of ten collections of poetry, Conoley received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and was awarded the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a Fund for Poetry Award. A Little More Red Sun on the Human, also with Nightboat, won the 39th annual Northern California Book Award in 2020. Conoley’s translations of three books by Henri Michaux, Thousand Times Broken, is with City Lights. Editor of VOLT magazine, Conoley has collaborated with installation artist Jenny Holzer, composer Jamie Leigh Sampson, and Butoh dancer Judith Kajuwara.

Christopher Soto leads a close reading of Roque Dalton

On Thursday, June 1st, 2023, 3–4pm (ET)—Christopher Soto led a thinking-and-reading-through of "tercer poema de amor / Third Poem of Love" by Roque Dalton, followed by a short reading of his own work.

Christopher Soto (b. 1991) is a poet based in Los Angeles, California. His debut poetry collection, Diaries of a Terrorist, was published by Copper Canyon Press. This collection demands the abolition of policing and human caging. In 2022, he was honored with Them’s Now Award in Literature for representing the cutting edge of queer culture. [photo: Obidigbo Nzeribe]

Evie Shockley leads a close reading of Jayne Cortez

On Thursday, May 18th, 2023, 3–4pm (ET)—Evie Shockley led a thinking-and-reading-through of Jayne Cortez’ “Under the Edge of February,” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Poet & literary scholar Evie Shockley thinks, creates, and writes with her eye on a Black feminist horizon. Her books of poetry include suddenly we, semiautomatic, and the new black. Her work has twice garnered the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, has been named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and has appeared internationally. Her honors include the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Holmes National Poetry Prize, and the Stephen Henderson Award, and her joys include participating in poetry communities such as Cave Canem and collaborating with like-minded artists working in various media. Shockley is the Zora Neale Hurston Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University.

Monica Youn leads a close reading of Shane McCrae

On Thursday, April 20th, 2023, 3–4pm (ET)—Monica Youn led a thinking-and-reading-through of Shane McCrae’s “The Hell Poem,” followed by a short reading of her own work.

MONICA YOUN is the author of From From (Graywolf Press 2023), Blackacre (Graywolf Press 2016), Ignatz (Four Way Books 2010), and Barter (Graywolf Press 2003). She has been awarded the Levinson Prize from the Poetry Foundation, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America, a Witter Bytter Fellowship from the Library of Congress, and a Stegner Fellowship among other honors. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kingsley Tufts Award and the PEN Open Book Award. A former constitutional lawyer, she grew up in Houston, the daughter of Korean immigrants, and now splits her time between Brooklyn and Southern California, where she is an associate professor of English at UC Irvine. [photo: Beowolf Sheehan]

Paolo Javier leads a close reading of John Ashbery

On Thursday, April 6th, 2023, 3–4pm (ET)—Paolo Javier led a thinking-and-reading-through of John Ashbery’s “Riddle Me,” followed by a short reading of his own work.

The former Queens Borough Poet Laureate (2010-2014), PAOLO JAVIER's produced three albums of sound poetry with Listening Center (David Mason), including the limited edition pamphlet+cassette Ur’lyeh/ Aklopolis (Texte Und Tone) and the booklet+cassette Maybe the Sweet Honey Pours (Nion Editions/Temporary Tapes), currently streaming on Bandcamp, Spotify, and iTunes. The recipient of grants from the Rauschenberg Foundation, NYFA, Queens Council on the Arts, and New York State Council on the Arts, Javier was a featured artist in Greater New York 2015, and in Queens International 2018: Volumes. The author of O.B.B. (Nightboat Books, 2021) and a recent book of paraliterary and hybrid poems, True Account of Talking to the 7 in Sunnyside (Roof Books, 2022), he lives with his family in Jackson Heights, Queens. 

Major Jackson leads a close reading of Robert Hayden

On Thursday, March 16th, 2023, 3–4pm (ET)—MajorJackson led a thinking-and-reading-through of Robert Hayden’s “Night-Blooming Cereus,” followed by a short reading of his own work.

Major Jackson is the author of A Beat Beyond: The Selected Prose of Major Jackson edited by Amor Kohli (Michigan: 2022) and five volumes of poetry, most recently, The Absurd Man (Norton: 2020). His edited volumes include Best American Poetry 2019 and Library of America’s Countee Cullen: Collected Poems. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Major Jackson has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee where he is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review and is the host of American Public Media's "The Slow Down."

Lesle Lewis leads a close reading of Joseph Ceravolo

On Thursday, March 2nd, 2023, 3–4pm (ET)—Lesle Lewis led a thinking-and-reading-through of Joseph Ceravolo’s “Drunken Winter,” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Lesle Lewis' collections include Small Boat (winner of the 2002 Iowa Poetry Prize), Landscapes I & II (Alice James Books, 2006), lie down too (Alice James Books, 2011), A Boot's a Boot (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2014), and Rainy Days on the Farm (Fence Books, 2019) Her chapbook, It's Rothko in Winter or Belgium was published by Factory Hollow Press in 2012. She has had poems appear in many journals including American Letters and Commentary, Northern New England Review, Hotel Amerika, Mississippi Review, The Cincinnati Review, Green Mountains Review, Barrow Street Mudfish, LIT, Pool, jubilat, notnostrums, and Sentence. She lives in New Hampshire.

Farnoosh Fathi leads a close reading of Joan Murray

On Thursday, February 16th, 2023, 3–4pm (ET)—Farnoosh Fathi led a thinking-through/reading through Joan Murray's "Untitled I," followed by a short reading of her own work.

Farnoosh Fathi is the author of Great Guns (Canarium, 2013), editor of Joan Murray: Drafts, Fragments, and Poems (NYRB Poets, 2018) and founder of the Young Artists Language and Devotion Alliance (YALDA). She lives in Troy, NY and has taught at The Poetry Project, Poets House, Columbia University, Barnard College and Stanford Online High School.

Jennifer Bartlett leads a close reading of Charles Bernstein

On Thursday, February 2nd, 2023, 3–4pm (EST)—Jennifer Bartlett led a thinking-through/reading-through of Charles Bernstein’s “Report from Liberty Street.”

Jennifer Bartlett is the author of Autobiography/Anti-Autobiography (theenk Books, 2014), lullaby without any music (Chax Press, 2012), and Derivative of the Moving Image (University of New Mexico Press, 2007). She is co-founder and board member of Zoeglossia. Her forthcoming biography on Larry Eigner, Sustaining Air, will be published by the University of Alabama Press, July 2023.

Bhanu Kapil leads a close reading of Etel Adnan

On Thursday, January 19th 2023, 3–4PM (EST)—Bhanu Kapil led a thinking-through/reading-through of Etel Adnan's from The Spring Flowers Own: “The morning after / my death”, followed by a short reading of her own work.

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Bhanu Kapil is a poet and the author of several full-length collections, most recently How To Wash A Heart (Liverpool University Press), which won the TS Eliot Prize and was a Poetry Book Society selection. Incubation: a space for monsters, a prose/hybrid work, will be published by Kelsey Street Press in Fall 2022, with new writing on performance and an accompanying essay by Eunsong Kim. An Extraordinary Fellow of Churchill College (University of Cambridge), Kapil was elected in 2022 as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Other honors include a Windham-Campbell Prize from Yale University, and a Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors (UK). Kapil taught for twenty years at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and also maintained a private bodywork practice. Her body of work spans creative writing, performance, elder care, massage therapy, anti-colonial research, and teaching. At the University of Vermont, she has contributed to the Master's in Leadership for Sustainability as an affiliate, co-teaching modules with Sayra Pinto and Elena Georgiou. Since 2019, she has contributed to the development and piloting of a low-residency, practice-based PhD that focuses on leadership, creativity, and systems change.

Shiv Kotecha leads a close reading of Emily Dickinson

On Thursday, January 5th, 3–4PM (EST)—Shiv Kotecha led a thinking-through/reading-through of "Crumbling is not an instant's Act” by Emily Dickinson, followed by a short reading of her own work.

Shiv Kotecha is a writer and editor. He is the author of The Switch (Wonder, 2018) and EXTRIGUE (Make Now Books, 2015), and his criticism appears in publications including 4Columns, Aperture, MUBI’s Notebook, BOMB, frieze, The Nation. He co-edits Cookie Jar, a pamphlet series of the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, where he is on staff as Program Manager. He holds a PhD in English from New York University, and teaches classes on poetry and critical writing for NYU’s XE: Experimental Humanities Department and for the Department of Photography at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Zoe Tuck leads a close reading of Alejandra Piznarik

On Thursday, November 10th, 3–4PM (EST)—Zoe Tuck led a thinking-through/reading-through of "[All night I head the noise of water sobbing.]" by Alejandra Pizarnak, followed by a short reading of her own work.

Zoe Tuck was born in Texas, became a person in California, and now lives in Massachusetts, where she teaches through the Threshold Academy and hosts “The But Also Reading Series" with Britt Billmeyer-Finn. She co-curates Belladonna* Collaborative's "Close Distances Reading Series" and co-edits Hot Pink Magazine. Zoe is the author of Soft Investigations (Daisy Mayhem Books 2019) and Terror Matrix (Timeless, Infinite Light 2014). An excerpt of her epic poem, The Book of Bella, is forthcoming in 2022 from DoubleCross Press. Find out more at zoetuck.com.

Laura Moriarty leads a close reading of Bhanu Khapil

On Thursday, October 27th, 3–4PM (EST)—Laura Moriarty led a thinking-through/reading-through of "Preface to Reverse the Book" by Bhanu Kapil, followed by a short reading of her own work.

Laura Moriarty was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Northern California where she has lived since 1964. She attended UC Berkeley. She was the Director of the American Poetry Archives at the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University for many years. She has taught at Naropa University and Mills College. She was Deputy Director of Small Press Distribution for two decades. Her recent books include Personal Volcano, Who That Divines, A Tonalist, and A Semblance: Selected and New Poems, 1975-2007. Last February she had her first show of visual art, rapt glass, at the Right Window in San Francisco.

Wendy Xu leads a close reading of Bei Dao

On Thursday, October 13th, 3–4PM (EST)—Wendy Xu led a thinking-through/reading-through of “Black Map” by Bei Dao, followed by a short reading of her own work.

Wendy Xu is most recently the author of The Past (Wesleyan, 2021) and Phrasis, named one of the 10 Best Poetry Books of 2017 by The New York Times Book Review. Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Granta, Poetry, Tin House, Conjunctions, The New Republic, The New York Review of Books, and widely elsewhere. She is assistant professor of writing at The New School, where she teaches poetry.

Eleni Sikelianos leads a close reading of Alice Notley

On Thursday, September 29, 3-4PM (EST) — Eleni Sikelianos led a thinking-through/reading-through of an Alice Notley picture poem, followed by a short reading of her own work.

Henri Cole leads a close reading of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Oh Thursday, September 15, 3–4PM (ET—Henri Cole led a thinking-through/reading-through of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ "Spelt from Sybil's Leaves,” followed by a short reading of his own work.

Henri Cole was born in Fukuoka, Japan to a French mother and an American father. He has published ten collections of poetry and received many awards, including the Medal in Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has also published Orphic Paris, a memoir. He teaches at Claremont McKenna College.

E. Ethelbert Miller leads a close reading of June Jordan

On Thursday, September 1, 3–4PM (ET)—E. Ethelbert Miller led a thinking-through/reading-through of June Jordan’s "Poem Against the State (of Things): 1975" (click to read poem), following by a short reading of his own work.

E. Ethelbert Miller is a writer and literary activist. He is the author of two memoirs and several books of poetry. Miller hosts the WPFW morning radio show On the Margin with E. Ethelbert Miller and hosts and produces The Scholars on UDC-TV, which received a 2020 Telly Award. Most recently, he received a grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities and a congressional award from Congressman Jamie Raskin in recognition of his literary activism. Miller’s latest book is How I Found Love Behind the Catcher's Mask, published by City Point Press.

Jena Osman leads a close reading of Don Mee Choi

On Friday, July 8th, 3–3pm (EDT)—Jena Osman led a reading-through/thinking-through of Don Mee Choi’s "Woe Are You?," followed by a short reading of her own work.

Jena Osman’s books of poems include Motion Studies (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2019), Corporate Relations (Burning Deck, 2014), Public Figures (Wesleyan University Press, 2012), The Network (Fence Books 2010, selected for the National Poetry Series in 2009), An Essay in Asterisks (Roof Books, 2004) and The Character (Beacon Press, winner of the 1998 Barnard New Women Poets Prize). She was a 2006 Pew Fellow in the Arts and has received grants for her poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Howard Foundation, and the Fund for Poetry. She co-founded and edited the literary magazine Chain with Juliana Spahr for twelve years. She teaches in the MFA Creative Writing program in the English Department at Temple University.

Aditi Machado leads a close reading of Nathaniel Mackey

On Friday, June 10, 3–4pm (EDT)—Aditi Machado led a reading-through/thinking-through of Nathaniel Mackey's "Said to Have Been Heard to Say Hush," followed by a short reading of her own work.

Aditi Machado is a poet, translator, and essayist. Her second book of poems, Emporium (Nightboat, 2020), received the James Laughlin Award. Her other works include the poetry collection Some Beheadings (Nightboat, 2017), an essay pamphlet titledThe End (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2020), a translation from the French of Farid Tali’s novella Prosopopoeia (Action, 2016), and several poetry chapbooks. Her writing appears in journals like The Chicago Review, Lana Turner, The Rumpus, Volt, and Western Humanities Review, among others. She works as an Assistant Professor of Poetry at the University of Cincinnati.

Tonya Foster leads a close reading of Gwendolyn Brooks

On Friday, June 3, 3–4pm (EDT)—Tonya Foster led a reading-through/thinking-through of Gwendolyn Brooks’ “The Life of Lincoln West" and "The Ballad of Pearl May Lee," followed by a short discussion of her own work.

Tonya M. Foster is a poet, essayist, and Black feminist scholar. She is the author of A Swarm of Bees in High Court, the bilingual chapbook La Grammaire des Os; and co-editor of Third Mind: Teaching Creative Writing through Visual Art. Her writing and research focus on poetry, poetics, ideas of place and emplacement, and on intersections between the visual and the written. She is a poetry editor at Fence Magazine and a member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto. A recipient of awards from Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute, the Creative Capital Foundation, Macdowell, Headlands Center for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, the San Francisco Museum of the African Diaspora, and the Ford and Mellon Foundations, among others, Dr. Foster serves as the George and Judy Marcus Endowed Chair in Poetry at San Francisco State University.

Norma Cole leads a close reading of Wordsworth & Ashbery

On Friday, May 20th, 2022—3PM (EDT)—Norma Cole led a group reading-through/thinking-through of William Wordsworth’s “Two-Part Prelude” along with John Ashbery’s “Streakiness,” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Norma Cole is a poet, visual artist and translator. Her most recent book of poetry is Fate News. Other books include Win These Posters and Other Unrelated Prizes Inside, Where Shadows Will: Selected Poems 1988—2008, Spinoza in Her Youth, To Be at Music: Essays & Talks and Actualities, her collaboration with Marina Adams. Her translations from French include Danielle Collobert’s It Then, Crosscut Universe: Writing on Writing from France (edited & translated by Cole), and Jean Daive’s White Decimal. Her visual work has been shown at the Miami University Art Museum, [2nd floor projects] in San Francisco, Berkeley Art Museum, and most recently her film “By the Turning Bridge” at Arion Press and NIAD. A book of her drawings called Drawings just appeared from Further Other Book Works.

Charles Bernstein leads a close reading of Larry Eigner

On Friday, May 13th, 2022—3PM (EDT)—Charles Bernstein led a group reading-through/thinking-through of Larry Eigner’s "Again Dawn," followed by a short reading of his own work.

Charles Bernstein is the winner of the 2019 Bollingen Prize for Near/Miss (University of Chicago Press, 2018) and for lifetime achievement in American Poetry. He is the author of Topsy-Turvy (Chicago, April 2021) and Pitch of Poetry (Chicago, 2016). In 2020, Roof Books published The Course, a collaboration with Ted Greenwald. He lives in Brooklyn. More info @ http://writing.upenn.edu/epc

Kimberly Alidio leads a Close Reading of Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

On Friday, May 6th, 2022—3PM (EDT)—Kimberly Alidio led a group reading-through/thinking-through of Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s "Texas” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Kimberly Alidio (she/they) is an educator, historian, and author of four books of poetry, including why letter ellipses (selva oscura); : once teeth bones coral : (Belladonna*), a Lambda Literary Award Finalist; and after projects the resound (Black Radish). Their most recent book, Teeter, won the Nightboat Poetry Prize, and will be published in Fall 2023. She teaches in Bard’s Language and Thinking Program, Prison Initiative, Early College, and Milton Avery School of the Arts. With their partner, the poet Stacy Szymaszek, they live on unceded Munsee and Muhheaconneok/ Mohican lands, otherwise known as New York’s Upper Hudson Valley.

Rodrigo Toscano leads a Close Reading of Bertolt Brecht

On Friday, March 18th, 2022—3PM (EDT)—Rodrigo Toscano led a group reading-through/thinking through of a Bertolt Brecht’s “The Doubter” followed by a short reading of his own work.

Rae Armantrout leads a Close Reading of “Two Language Poets Later”

On Friday, March 11th, 2022—3PM (EST)—Rae Armantrout led a group reading-through/thinking through of two “Language Poets Later”: “You, Part I” by Ron Silliman and “Ponderable” by Lyn Hejinian, followed by a short reading of her own work.

Rae Armantrout is the author of fifteen books of poems, including Conjure, a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker award,  (Wesleyan, 2020), Wobble (2018), a finalist for the National Book Award, and Versed (2009) which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2010.  She is the current judge of the Yale Younger Poet award. Her work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies including The London Review of Books, The New Yorker, Conjunctions, The Paris Review, Bomb, The Brooklyn Rail, The New York Review of Books, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology, and several editions of The Best American Poetry. Her latest book, Finalists, from Wesleyan, appears March of 2022. Armantrout is professor emerita at UC San Diego. She currently lives in Everett, WA.

Tyrone Williams leads a Close Reading of Duriel E. Harris

On Friday, February 11th, 2022, Tyrone Williams led a group reading-through of Duriel E. Harris’ “What he thought belly down, when I was 8 years old” followed by a short reading of his own work.

Tyrone Williams is the author of several chapbooks and books of poetry. He teaches on the English and RIGS (Race, Intersectionality, Gender) departments and Philosophy, Politics and the Public honor program at Xavier University in Cincinnati Ohio.

Stephanie Burt leads a Close Reading of Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt

On Friday, January 28th, 2022 Stephanie Burt led a group reading-through of Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt’s “The Palace-Burner” followed by a short reading of here own work.

Stephanie (also Steph; formerly Stephen) Burt is a poet, literary critic, and professor. She has published four collections of poems: Advice from the Lights (2017), Belmont (2013), Parallel Play (2006), and Popular Music (1999). Burt's works of criticism include The Poem is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them (2016); Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry (2009), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; The Art of the Sonnet, written with David Mikics (2010); The Forms of Youth: 20th-Century Poetry and Adolescence (2007); Randall Jarrell on W.H. Auden (2005), with Hannah Brooks-Motl; and Randall Jarrell and His Age (2002). Burt has taught at Macalester College and is now Professor of English at Harvard University. 

Dorothea Lasky leads a Close Reading of Bhanu Kapil

On Friday, January 15th, 2022 Dorothea Lasky led a group reading-through of Bhanu Kapil’s “What are the consequences of silence?” followed by a short reading of her own work

Dorothea Lasky has published several collections of poetry, Milk (2018), ROME (2014), Thunderbird (2012), Black Life (2010), and AWE (2007), as well as several chapbooks, including Snakes (2017) and Poetry Is Not a Project (2010). She is the editor of Essays (2021) and co-editor of Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry (2013). In 2019, she published Animal, a book of prose. Lasky’s poems have appeared in a number of prominent publications, including The New Yorker, Paris Review, and American Poetry Review. Lasky was awarded a Bagley Wright Fellowship in 2013, and currently, she is an associate professor of poetry at Columbia University, where she directs the poetry program.

Asiya Wadud leads a Close Reading of Dionne Brand

On Friday, January 15th, 2022 Dorothea Lasky led a group reading-through of Dionne Brand’s “Verso 3.1” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Asiya Wadud is the author of Crosslight for Youngbird, day pulls down the sky/ a filament in gold leaf (written with Okwui Okpokwasili), Syncope and No Knowledge Is Complete Until It Passes Through My Body. Her recent writing appears in e-flux journal, BOMB Magazine, Poem-a-Day, Chicago Review, Social Text, FENCE, and elsewhere. Asiya’s work has been supported by the Foundation Jan Michalski, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (River to River: Four Voices 2020; Governors Island Arts Center residency 2019-2020; Process Space 2017), Danspace Project, Brooklyn Poets, Dickinson House, Mount Tremper Arts, and the New York Public Library, among others. She lives in Brooklyn, New York where she teaches poetry at Saint Ann’s School, Columbia University, and Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Major Jackson leads a Close Reading of Derek Walcott

On Friday, January 10th, 2021 Major Jackson led a group reading-through/thinking-through of Derek Walcott’s “At the end of the line there is an opening door” followed by a short reading of is own work.

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Major Jackson is the author of A Beat Beyond: The Selected Prose of Major Jackson edited by Amor Kohli (Michigan: 2022) and five volumes of poetry, most recently, The Absurd Man (Norton: 2020). His edited volumes include Best American Poetry 2019 and Library of America’s Countee Cullen: Collected Poems. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Major Jackson has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee where he is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. He serves as the Poetry Editor of The Harvard Review.

Cole Swensen leads a Close Reading of H.D.

On Friday, November 5th, 2021, Cole Swensen led a group reading-through of a trio of poems from Sea Garden: by H.D.: Sea Rose, Sea Poppies and Evening, followed by a short reading of her own work.

Cole Swensen is the author of eighteen collections of poetry, most recently Art in Time (NIghboat 2021), On Walking On (Nightboat, 2017), Gave (Omnidawn, 2017), and Landscapes on a Train (Nightboat 2015), and a volume of critical essays. Her poetic collections turn around specific research projects, including ones on public parks, visual art, illuminated manuscripts, and ghosts. Her work has won the National Poetry Series, the Iowa Poetry Prize, the San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Award, and the PEN USA Award in Literary Translation. A former Guggenheim Fellow, she is the co-editor of the Norton anthology American Hybrid and the founding editor of La Presse Poetry (www.lapressepoetry.com). She teaches at Brown University.

Pierre Joris leads a Close Reading of Paul Celan

On Friday, October 22nd, 2021, Pierre Joris led a group reading-through of Paul Celan’s “Line the Word Caves” and “Deathfugue” followed by a short reading of his own work.

Pierre Joris has moved between Europe, the US & North Africa for some 55 years now, publishing over 80 books of poetry, essays, translations and anthologies — most recently Fox-trails, -tales & -trots (poems & proses, Black Fountain Press); the translations Memory Rose into Threshold Speech: The Collected Earlier Poetry of Paul Celan (FSG) & Microliths: Posthumous Prose of Paul Celan (Contra Mundum Press). In 2020 he also published A City Full of Voices: Essays on the Work of Robert Kelly (co-edited with Peter Cockelbergh & Joel Newberger, CMP), & earlier: Arabia (not so) Deserta (Essays, Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2019), Conversations in the Pyrenees with Adonis (CMP 2018), and The Book of U (poems, with Nicole Peyrafitte, Editions Simoncini 2017). When not on the road, he lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, with his wife, multimedia praticienne Nicole Peyrafitte.

M. NourbeSe Philip leads a Close Reading of Kamau Brathwaite

On Friday, October 9th, 2021, M. NourbeSe Philip led a group reading-through of Kamau Brathwaite’s “Bermudas” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Born in Tobago, M. NourbeSe Philip is an unembedded poet, essayist, novelist, playwright and independent scholar who lives in the space-time of Toronto where she practiced law for seven years before becoming a writer. Among her published works are the seminal She Tries Her Tongue; Her Silence Softly Breaks; the speculative prose poem Looking for Livingston: An Odyssey of Silence; the young adult novel, Harriet’s Daughter; the play, "Coups and Calypsos," and four collections of essays, including her most recent, BlanK. Her book-length poem, Zong!, is a conceptually innovative, genre-breaking epic, which explodes the legal archive as it relates to slavery. Among her awards are the prestigious Chalmers Award, the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Casa de las Americas Prize, the Lawrence Foundation Prize, the Arts Foundation of Toronto Writing and Publishing Award and Dora Award finalist. Her fellowships include Guggenheim, McDowell, and Rockefeller (Bellagio). She is an awardee of both the YWCA Woman of Distinction (Arts) and the Elizabeth Fry Rebels for a Cause awards. She is the 2020 recipient of PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

Juliana Spahr leads a Close Reading of Bernadette Mayer

On Friday, September 24th, 2021, Juliana Spahr led a group reading-through of Bernadette Mayer’s “How to Keep Going in Antarctica” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Juliana Spahr's most recent book of poetry is That Winter the Wolf Came (Commune Editions).

Harryette Mullen leads a Close Reading of Marilyn Chin’s

On Friday, September 10th, 2021, Harryette Mullen led a group reading-through of Marilyn Chin’s“Rhapsody in Plain Yellow” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Harryette Mullen’s poems, short stories, and essays are published widely and reprinted in over one hundred anthologies, including several published by Norton, Oxford, Cambridge, and Penguin presses. Her work appears in Best of Callaloo and was selected four times for the Best American Poetry anthology series edited by David Lehman with guest editors A.R. Ammons, Robert Hass, Terrance Hayes, and Robert Pinsky. She is a recipient of a Stephen Henderson Award, Academy of American Artist Fellowship, Jackson Poetry Prize, United States Artist Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Artist Fellowship from New York Foundation for the Arts, Helene Wurlitzer Fellowship, Dobie Paisano Fellowship, Katherine Newman Award for Best Essay on Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States, and a Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Poetry. Her poems have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal), Polish, Swedish, Danish, Turkish, Greek, Bulgarian, Russian, and Kyrgyz. Her poetry collections include Recyclopedia (Graywolf, 2006), winner of a PEN Beyond Margins Award, and Sleeping with the Dictionary (University of California, 2002), a finalist for a National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A collection of her essays and interviews, The Cracks Between What We Are and What We Are Supposed to Be, was published in 2012 by University of Alabama Press, and received an Elizabeth Agee Prize. Her poetry collection, Urban Tumbleweed: Notes from a Tanka Diary, was published by Graywolf Press in 2013. A new work is featured on a "Time Lost" podcast from Perdu in Amsterdam. She teaches courses in American poetry, African American literature, and creative writing at UCLA.

Edwin Torres leads a Close Reading of Juliana Spahr

Friday, May 28th, 2021, Edwin Torres led a group reading-through of Juliana Spahr’s “Turnt” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Edwin Torres (Nuyoricua, USA) is a lingualisualist poet, rooted in the languages of sight and sound. He is the author of eleven books of poetry including The Animal's Perception of Earth (Doublecross Press, forthcoming), Xoeteox: the infinite word object (Wave Books), Ameriscopia (University of Arizona Press), The PoPedology of an Ambient Language (Atelos Books), and editor of the inter-genre anthology, The Body In Language: An Anthology (Counterpath Press). He has improvised with many artists and performed his multi-disciplinary bodylingo poetics worldwide. His audio work is at PennSound, Ubuweb Sound, and his CD Holy Kid (Kill Rock Stars) was part of the exhibition The Last American Century Pt. II at The Whitney Museum. He has received fellowships from The Foundation for Contemporary Art, NYFA, The DIA Arts Foundation, and The Poetry Fund, among others. He has taught his process-oriented workshop, Brainlingo: Writing The Voice of The Body for many years and his work is included in a wide variety of journals and anthologies. 

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Shane McCrae leads a Close Reading of Anthony Hecht

On Friday, May 21st, 2021, Shane McCrae led a group reading-through of Anthony Hecht’s “A Deep Breath at Dawn” (click to read poem) along with a look at Bill Coyle’s “Aubade”followed by a short reading of his own work.

Shane McCrae grew up in Texas and California. The first in his family to graduate from college, McCrae earned a BA at Linfield College, an MA at the University of Iowa, an MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a JD at Harvard Law School. McCrae is the author of several poetry collections, including Mule (2011); Blood (2013); The Animal Too Big to Kill (2015); In the Language of My Captor (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; and The Gilded Auction Block (2019). His work has also been featured in The Best American Poetry 2010, edited by Amy Gerstler, and his honors include a Whiting Writers’ Award and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. McCrae’s attention to both meter and its breakage in his poems emphasizes the chafe of historical accounting against contemporary slippage, engaging this country’s troubling history and continuation of oppression and violence. McCrae lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

giovanni singleton leads a Close Reading of concrete poems

On Friday, May 14th, 2021, giovanni singleton led a group reading-through of a group of concrete poems that foreground or engage with the letter “O” followed by a sort reading of her own work.

giovanni singleton is the author of Ascension, informed by the life and work of Alice Coltrane, which won the California Book Award Gold Medal and AMERICAN LETTERS: works on paper, a collection of visual art and poetry. Her writing has been widely anthologized as well as exhibited in the Smithsonian Institute’s American Jazz Museum, San Francisco’s first Visual Poetry and Performance Festival, and on the building of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. In 2018, she received the African American Literature and Culture Society’s Stephen E. Henderson Award for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry. She is founding editor of nocturnes (re)view of the literary arts, a journal dedicated to experimental work of the African Diaspora and other contested spaces. For ten years she coordinated the Lunch Poems reading series at the University of California, Berkeley where she also served as the Holloway Lecturer in Poetry and Poetics. singleton was recently awarded an inaugural 2020 c3:Initiative letterpress residency. Her dreamography is forthcoming from Noemi Press.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Carl Phillips leads a Close Reading of Jean Valentine

On Friday, April 30th, 2021, Carl Phillips led a group reading-through of Jean Valentine’s “The River at Wolf” followed by a short reading of his own work.

Carl Phillips is the author of 15 books of poetry, most recently Pale Colors in a Tall Field (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020) and Wild Is the Wind (FSG, 2018), which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Other honors include the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, the Kingsley Tufts Award, a Lambda Literary Award, the PEN/USA Award for Poetry, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Library of Congress, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Academy of American Poets. Phillips has also written two prose books: The Art of Daring: Risk, Restlessness, Imagination (Graywolf, 2014) and Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Life and Art of Poetry (Graywolf, 2004); and he has translated the Philoctetes of Sophocles (Oxford University Press, 2004). He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Eléna Rivera leads a Close Reading of Barbara Guest

On Friday, April 16th, 2021, Eléna Rivera led a group reading-through of Barbara Guest’s ““Dissonance Royal Traveller” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Eléna Rivera was born in Mexico City and raised in Paris, France. Her new book of poems, Epic Series, is just out from Shearsman Books. Her third  full-length collection of poetry Scaffolding (2017) was published by Princeton  University Press. She received a National Endowment for the Arts Literature  Fellowship in Translation and was a recent recipient of fellowships from  MacDowell (2020), Trelex Paris Poetry Residency (2019), Tamaas (2016)  and the SHOEN Foundation (2016). Her translation of Isabelle Baladine Howald’s Phantomb is forthcoming from Black Square Editions.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Mónica de la Torre Leads a Close Reading of Cesar Vallejo

On Friday, April 2nd, 2021, Mónica de la Torre led a group reading-through of Cesar Vallejo's "XXXVI" from Trilce, as translated by Clayton Eshelman followed by a short reading of her own work.

Poet, translator, and scholar Mónica de la Torre was born and raised in Mexico City. She earned a BA from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and, with the support of a Fulbright scholarship, relocated to New York in 1993 to pursue an MFA and a PhD in Spanish literature at Columbia University. Her full-length poetry collections include Public Domain (2008), Talk Shows (2007). She has also published the chapbooks Four (Switchback) and The Happy End (Song Cave). With artist Terence Gower, she co-authored the art book Appendices, Illustrations and Notes (1999). De la Torre coedited, with Michael Wiegers, the bilingual anthology Reversible Monuments: Contemporary Mexican Poetry (2002). Her translations from Spanish include Lila Zemborain’s Mauve Sea-Orchids (2007, co-translated with Rosa Alcalá) and Poems by Gerardo Deniz (2000), which she also edited. De la Torre’s honors include a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. She has edited BOMB Magazine and the Brooklyn Rail. She lives in Brooklyn

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Divya Victor Leads a Close Reading of Emily Jungmin Yoon

On Thursday, December 3rd, 2020 Divya Victor led a reading-through of Emily Jungmin Yoon’s “Bell Theory”“Bell Theory” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Divya Victor is the author of Curb (Nightboat Books, forthcoming); Kith, a book of verse, prose memoir, lyric essay and visual objects (Fence Books/ Book*hug); Natural Subjects (Trembling Pillow, Winner of the Bob Kaufman Award), Unsub (Insert Blanc), and Things To Do With Your Mouth (Les Figues). Her work has been collected in numerous venues, including BOMB, the New Museum’s The Animated Reader, Crux: Journal of Conceptual Writing, The Best American Experimental Writing, POETRY, and boundary2. Her work has been translated into French, German, Spanish, and Czech. She has been a Mark Diamond Research Fellow at the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum, a Riverrun Fellow at the Archive for New Poetry at U.C. San Diego, and a Writer-in-Residence at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibit (L.A.C.E.). Her work has been performed and installed at MoCA in Los Angeles, The National Gallery of Singapore, L.A.C.E., and MoMA. She has been an editor at Jacket2, Ethos Books , Invisible Publishing (Canada) and Book*hug Press. She is currently Associate Professor of English at Michigan State University.

Rachel Blau DuPlessis Leads a Close Reading of George Oppen

On Thursday, November 19th, 2020, Rachel Blau DuPlessis led a reading-through of George Oppen’s “The Translucent Mechanics” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Poet, critic, and collagist Rachel Blau DuPlessis is the author of the multi-volume long poem Drafts (1986-2012), from Salt Publishing and Wesleyan, the subject of several critical studies. Her recent book is Late Work (Black Square Editions, 2020) from the series Traces, with Days, including Days and Works (Ahsahta Editions, 2017) and Around the Day in 80 Worlds (BlazeVOX, 2018). In-print collage-poems are Graphic Novella (Xexoxial Editions, 2015) and Numbers (Materialist Press, 2018). She has published a number of books on gender and poetics, including the trilogy The Pink Guitar, Blue Studios, and Purple Passages, and has co-edited several anthologies and edited The Selected Letters of George Oppen. She lives in Philadelphia.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Julian Talamantez Brolaski Leads a Close Reading of an Anonymous Medieval Poem

On Thursday, November 5th, 2020, Julian Talamantez Brolaski led a reading-through of the anonymous medieval poem “Foweles in the Frith” followed by a short reading of their worn work.

Julian Talamantez Brolaski is the author of Of Mongrelitude (Wave Books 2017), Advice for Lovers (City Lights 2012), gowanus atropolis (Ugly Duckling Presse 2011), and the co-editer of NO GENDER: Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards (Litmus/Belladonna 2009). Julian is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of Juan & the Pines, which recently released its first EP, Glittering Forest (2019). Julian lives in Goleta, California.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

ROSAMOND S. KING LEADS A CLOSE READING OF NATALIE DIAZ

On Thursday, October 22nd, 2020, Rosamond S. King Led a reading-through (via Zoom) of Natalie Diaz’s “My Brother at 3 A.M.” (followed by a short reading of her own work.

Rosamond S. King is a critical and creative writer and artist. Her poetry collections include the Lambda Award-winning Rock | Salt | Stone (Nightboat Books 2017), and the forthcoming All the Rage (Nightboat, 2021). King has also been published in more than three dozen journals and anthologies, has performed widely at spaces such as Poets House, the African Performance Art Biennale and the Encuentro Performance Festival. Her book Island Bodies: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination won the 2015 Caribbean Studies Association Gordon K and Sybil Lewis Prize for the best Caribbean Studies Book. Her scholarship has also appeared in many journals including Callaloo, The Journal of West Indian Literature, and Women and Performance. She is also the recipient of numerous fellowships, awards and creative residencies, and teaches courses in Caribbean and African literature, creative writing, sexuality, performance, and immigrant literature at Brooklyn College.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

TRACIE MORRIS LEADS A CLOSE READING OF ANGELA JACKSON

On Thursday, October 8th, 2020, Tracie Morris led a reading-through (via Zoom) of Angela Jackson’s “Miz Rosa Rides the Bus” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Born in Brooklyn, interdisciplinary poet and sound artist Tracie Morris earned an MFA at Hunter College and a PhD at New York University. She studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and at Michael Howard Studios. Her poetry collections include handholding: 5 kinds (2016), Rhyme Scheme (2012), and Intermission (1998), and is featured in anthologies including The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind (2015), The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (2015), and An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art (2002). With Charles Bernstein, she co-edited Best American Experimental Writing (2016). Her sound installations have been presented at the Whitney Biennial, MoMA, the Jamaica Center for Arts &Learning, and other sites. She leads the Tracie Morris Band and is a lead singer for Terraplane. Morris won championships for the Nuyorican Grand Slam and the National Haiku Slam, and has received numerous additional honors, including grants from NYFA, Creative Capital, and the Asian Cultural Council. She has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a CPCW poetics fellow, and Pratt Institute, where she is a professor in humanities and media studies. 

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

TODD COLBY LEADS A CLOSE READING OF JOHN ASHBERY

On Thursday, September 24th, 2020, Todd Colby led a reading-through (via Zoom) of John Ashbery’s “By Guess and By Gosh” followed by a short reading of his own work.

Poet and visual artist Todd Colby attended the University of Iowa, where he and fellow students started the band Drunken Boat in the 1980s. He moved to New York City to attend graduate school at Brooklyn College before Drunken Boat began touring and releasing CDs. His first poetry collection, Ripsnort, was published in 1994, followed by Cush (1995), Riot in the Charm Factory (1999), Tremble & Shine (2004), and Splash State (2014). The New York School poets, punk rock, spoken-word poetry, John Ashbery, and the modernists, including William Carlos Williams and Gertrude Stein, all influenced his poetry. Colby has served on the board of directors of the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, where he also taught workshops. He has collaborated with artists Marianne Vitale and David Lantow and edited the anthology Heights of the Marvelous: A New York Anthology (2000). Colby wrote a poem a day about the 2012 Tour de France for Bicycling magazine online.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

KAZIM ALI LEADS A CLOSE READING OF SUSAN HOWE

Thursday, July 16th, 2020 (via Zoom), Kazim Ali led a close reading of Susan Howe’s “Silence Wager Stories” followed by a short reading of his own work.

Kazim Ali’s poetry collections include The Far Mosque (2005), which won Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award, The Fortieth Day (2008), Sky Ward (2013), and Inquisition (2018). His prose includes The Disappearance of Seth (2009), Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (2009), Resident Alien: On Border-crossing and the Undocumented Divine (2015), Anaïs Nin: An Unprofessional Study (Agape Editions, 2017), and the essay collection Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies (2018). He is also the author of the novel Quinn’s Passage (2005), named one of the Best Books of 2005 by Chronogram magazine, and the experimental novel, written as a musical score, The Secret Room: A String Quartet (Kaya Press, 2017). He has translated Marguerite Duras’s Abahn Sabana David (2016) and When the Night Agrees to Speak to Me (forthcoming December 2020) by Ananda Devi. In 2003 Ali co-founded Nightboat Books and continues to serve as an editor with the press. Ali has been a regular columnist for the American Poetry Review and a contributing editor for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Writer’s Chronicle. He is currently professor of Literature and Writing at the University of California, San Diego.

DARA WIER LEADS A CLOSE READING OF MARIANNE MOORE

Thursday, July 2nd, 2020 (via Zoom), Dara Wier led a close reading of Marianne Moore’s “When I Buy Pictures” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Dara Wier has received honors from The Lannan Foundation, The Guggenheim Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, American Poetry Archive and Center, and the American Poetry Review. Author of thirteen poetry collections, including recently In the Still of the Night (Wave Books 2017), and soon Tolstoy Killed Anna Karenina also from Wave Books. She lives and works in North Amherst Massachusetts and teaches poetry workshops for the University of Massachusetts MFA for Poets & Writers.

LUCY IVES LEADS A CLOSE READING OF MADELINE GINS

Thursday, June 25th, 2020 (via Zoom), Lucy Ives led a close reading of excerpts from WORD RAIN, followed by a short reading of her own work.

Lucy Ives was born in New York City and earned a BA from Harvard University, an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a PhD in comparative literature from New York University. Her first collection, the book-length poem Anamnesis (2009), won the Slope Editions Book Prize. Ives is also the author of the full-length novels, Impossible Views of the World (2017) and Loudermilk: Or, the Real Poet; Or, the Origin of the World (2019); the “brief novel” nineties (2013); a poetry and essay collection, Orange Roses (2013); along with several other poetry and short prose collections, including The Hermit (2016). Ives is the editor of The Saddest Thing Is That I Have Had to Use Words: A Madeline Gins Reader (Siglio Press, 2020). She has been awarded an Iowa Arts fellowship, a MacCracken fellowship, and a Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. A former editor of Triple Canopy, Ives has written for Art in America, Artforum, The Believer, frieze, Granta, and Vogue, among other publications. She lives in Vermont.

This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

SIMONE WHITE LEADS A CLOSE READING OF LESLIE SCALAPINO

Thursday, May 28th, 2020 (via Zoom), poet Simone White led a close reading of Leslie Scalapino’s “A Sequence,” followed by a short reading of her own work.

Simone White is the author of Dear Angel of Death, Of Being Dispersed, and House of Envy of All the World, the poetry chapbook Unrest, and the collaborative poem/painting chapbook Dolly, with Kim Thomas. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in New York.

This event marked the 10th anniversary of the passing of poet Leslie Scalapino.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

RIGOBERTO GONZÁLEZ LEADS A CLOSE READING OF JAY WRIGHT

Thursday, May 14th, 2020 (via Zoom), poet Rigoberto González led a close reading of Jay Wright's "The Homecoming Singer," followed by a short reading of his own work.

Rigoberto González is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Book of Ruin (Four Way Books). His twelve books of prose include two bilingual children's books, the three young adult novels, and the memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, which received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. He also edited Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing, Alurista's new and selected Xicano Duende: A Select Anthology, a 2019 Ploughshares, and has received Guggenheim, NEA and USA Rolón fellowships, a NYFA poetry grant, Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Prize, Lambda Literary Award for Poetry, and the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award, The Poetry Center Book Award, and the Barnes & Noble Writer for Writers Award. Currently, he is professor of English and director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey. In 2015, he received The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle. In 2020, he received the PEN/Voelcker Award. www.rigobertogonzalez.com

PATRICIA SPEARS JONES LEADS A CLOSE READING OF GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Thursday, April 30th, 2020, poet Patricia Spears Jones led a close reading of Gwendolyn Brook’s "The Lovers of the Poor," followed by a short reading of her own work.

Patricia Spears Jones, an African American poet, playwright, anthologist, educator and cultural activist, won the 2017 Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers. She is author of A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems and 10 other poetry collections. Her work is anthologized in Of Poetry and Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin; BAX: Best American Experimental Writing, 2016: 2017 Pushcart Prize XLI, Best of Small Presses; and Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry. Poems have recently appeared in The New Yorker, Dark Matter: Women Witnessing, Ms. Muse, Plume, Persimmon Tree, and CUTTHROAT: A Journal of the Arts. She edited THINK: Poems for Aretha Franklin Inauguration Day Hat and Ordinary Women: An Anthology of New York City Women Poets. She is a literary programs curator and a former Program Coordinator for The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, organizer of the American Poets Congress. and a Senior Fellow Emeritus of the Black Earth Institute. She is currently the Louis D. Rubin Writer-in-Resident at Hollins University. www.psjones.com

MARCELLA DURAND LEADS A CLOSE READING OF JOHN ASHBERY

Thursday, April 16, 2020, poet Marcella Durand led a group close reading of John Ashbery's "Unusual Precautions," followed by a short reading of her own work.

Marcella Durand's most recent books include The Prospect from Delete Press (2020) and her translation of Michèle Métail's book-length poem, Earth's Horizons (Black Square Editions, 2020). Other publications include Rays of the Shadow (Tent Editions, 2017); Le Jardin de M. (The Garden of M.), with French translations by Olivier Brossard (joca seria, 2016); Deep Eco Pré, a collaboration with Tina Darragh, (Little Red Leaves); AREA (Belladonna); and Traffic & Weather (Futurepoem), written during a residency at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She is currently working on a new book-length poem, forthcoming from Black Square Editions.