Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Razielle Aigen, Fred Schmalz, Chris Nealon, Matthew Rohrer + Noelle Kocot (read by Matthew Rohrer) : virtual reading series #8


a series of video recordings of contemporary poets reading from their work, prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent cancellations, shut-downs and isolations; a reading series you can enjoy in the safety of your own protected space,

Razielle Aigen : “A Cabin in the Woods,” “From the Outside,” “Hello, World!,” from Light Waves The Leaves (above/ground 2020)

Razielle Aigen is a Montreal-born poet. Her fist chapbook, Light Waves The Leaves was published by above/ground press 2020. Her poems appear in Entropy, Deluge, Contemporary Verse 2, Ghost City Press, Train, Half A Grapefruit, Bad Dog Review, The Anti-Languorous Project, Cypress(forthcoming), and elsewhere. Razielle holds a B.A. in History and Contemporary Studies from Dalhousie/King’s University, and is an alumna of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University.

Fred Schmalz : “Volery” from Action in the Orchards, “Foraging in the woods” and “The price of bread”(which both appear in the new issue of Conduit)

Fred Schmalz is the author of Action in the Orchards (Nightboat Books 2019), which uses encounters with contemporary art to examine intimacy and loss. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry, Oversound, Conduit, and elsewhere. He makes art with Susy Bielak in the collaborative Balas & Wax. They are currently in residence at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, California. He lives in Chicago.

Chris Nealon : from “Last Glimpse” from The Shore

Chris Nealon is Professor of English at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of The Shore (Wave Books, forthcoming 2020) as well as two books of literary criticism, Foundlings: Lesbian and Gay Historical Emotion before Stonewall (Duke, 2001) and The Matter of Capital: Poetry and Crisis in The American Century (Harvard, 2011), as well as three earlier books of poetry: The Joyous Age (Black Square Editions, 2004), Plummet (Edge Books, 2009), and Heteronomy (Edge, 2014). He lives in Washington, DC.

Matthew Rohrer : “Seahorses are Awesome,” “You Will Notice a Faithful Block of Cheese is Present,” from The Sky Contains the Plans

Matthew Rohrer is the author of The Sky Contains the Plans (Wave Books, forthcoming 2020), The Others (Wave Books, 2017), which was the winner of the 2017 Believer Book Award, Surrounded by Friends (Wave Books, 2015), Destroyer and Preserver (Wave Books, 2011), A Plate of Chicken (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009), Rise Up (Wave Books, 2007) and A Green Light (Verse Press, 2004), which was shortlisted for the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize. He is also the author of Satellite (Verse Press, 2001), and co-author, with Joshua Beckman, of Nice Hat. Thanks. (Verse Press, 2002), and the audio CD Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing. His first book, A Hummock in the Malookas was selected for the National Poetry Series by Mary Oliver in 1994. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches at NYU.

Matthew Rohrer : the title poem from Noelle Kocot’s God’s Green Earth

Noelle Kocot is the author of many collections of poetry, including God's Green Earth (Wave Books, forthcoming 2020), Phantom Pains of Madness (Wave Books, May 2016), Soul in Space (Wave Books, 2013), The Bigger World (Wave Books, 2011), and a book of translations of some of the poems of Tristan Corbière, Poet by Default (Wave Books, 2011). Her previous works include the discography Damon's Room, (Wave Books Pamphlet Series, 2010), Sunny Wednesday (Wave Books, 2009) and Poem for the End of Time and Other Poems (Wave Books, 2006). She is also the author of 4 and The Raving Fortune (both from Four Way Books). Her poems have been anthologized in Best American Poetry in 2001, 2012, and 2013. She is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, The Fund for Poetry, the American Poetry Review, and a residency fellowship from the Lannan Foundation, and she has taught at the University of Texas New Writers' Project and currently teaches part-time at the New School. She is the Poet Laureate of Pemberton Borough, New Jersey.