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

On Friday, November 3rd, 2023, 3–4pm, 2023 (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, 2023, 3–4pm, 2023 (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, 2023, 3–4pm, 2023 (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, 2023, 3–4pm, 2023 (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, 2023, 3–4pm, 2023—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, 2023, 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.