Beatrice Szymkowiak, Katie Berta, J-T Kelly, Tom Jenks + Cary Fagan : virtual reading series #32

a series of video recordings of contemporary poets reading from their work, originally 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,

Beatrice Szymkowiak : Three poems from B/RDS

Beatrice Szymkowiak is a French-American writer and scholar. She graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts and a PhD in English/Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the author of Red Zone (Finishing Line Press, 2018), a poetry chapbook, as well as the winner of the 2017 OmniDawn Single Poem Broadside Contest, and the recipient of the 2022 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry for her full-length collection B/RDS, published by the University of Utah Press in 2023. Her work also has appeared in numerous poetry magazines.

Katie Berta : “Like That” and “Birthday”

Katie Berta’s debut poetry collection, retribution forthcoming, won the Hollis Summers Prize and was published by Ohio University Press in 2024. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, The Cincinnati Review, The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Denver Quarterly, The Yale Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Bennington Review, among other magazines. She has received residencies from Millay Arts, Ragdale, and The Hambidge Center, fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, and an Iowa Review Award. She is the managing editor of The Iowa Review and teaches literary editing at the University of Iowa and poetry at Arizona State University.

J-T Kelly : “Crossing,” “Keeping House,” and “West”

J-T Kelly is an innkeeper in Indianapolis. He lives in a brick house with his wife and their six children. He is the author of the chapbook Like Now (CCCP/Subpress, 2023).

Tom Jenks : from Melamine

Tom Jenks is a UK poet and text artist. Melamine, a sequence of 8 line poems, will be published by The Red Ceilings in 2024. Details of his other books and his artwork can be found at https://tomjenks.uk. He edits zimzalla, a small press specialising in literary objects, details of which can be found at https://zimzalla.co.uk.

Cary Fagan : “Any Moment Now”

Cary Fagan is the author of eight novels and five story collections, most recently The Animals (book*hug). He has also written many novels and picture books for children.  His next book is a collection of stories called A Fast Horse Never Brings Good News.

Tom Jenks : a small folio of poets : engerland

 a small folio of poets : engerland

 

 

 

 

Dimples

Dimples eats from the trough of the world.
He tampers with the thermostat so we think we have malaria.
He boils up cabbage and calls it a sauna.
He squirts the toothpaste deliberately on his lips.
He sours the milk with his hairdryer. 

He pulls up a chair and stands on it to treat us to The Wisdom of Dimples, e.g.:
(i)   never judge a book by its bookmark
(ii)  never keep a box inside the box you’re keeping it in
(iii) if you lie down with biscuits, you’re going to get crumbs

We gather in the garden at dusk, while Dimples works on his novel.
I’m fed up with Dimples, says Dimples’ brother, whose name is also Dimples.
I too am fed up with Dimples, says Dimples’ sister, whose name is also Dimples,
or the female equivalent of Dimples.

I am similarly fed up with Dimples, I say;
I abhor Dimples like the cartoon cat abhors the cartoon dog,
like the small fish abhors the slightly larger fish,
like the lollipop abhors the stick what sticks it.

Dimples’ brother and Dimples’ sister pause,
their soya lattes frozen midway to their lips.
That is exactly something Dimples would say, they say. 

Where is Dimples anyway?
His room is empty, his towel neatly folded on his bed.
The moon shines on it and the desk he sits at. 

 

 

The Water-Babies, Charles Kingsley (1863)

From the Polka Dot Texts series, proportionally representing frequency of letter occurrence, ordered alphabetically.

 

 

 

 

Tom Jenks lives in Manchester. His latest book is A Long and Hard Night Troubled by Visions (if p then q, 2018) and his work has recently appeared in The Poetry Review, Perverse, Litter and The Penguin Book of Oulipo. He edits the small press zimZalla, specialising in literary objects. More at https://www.zshboo.org/