Bios of My Birthday Readers!

I am thrilled to be celebrating my birthday May 31 at Unnameable Books with readings by Steve Dalachinsky, Ron Kolm, Dean Kostos, Stephanie Strickland, and Michael T. Young. Here are their bios below.

Poet/collagist STEVE DALACHINSKY was born in Brooklyn in1946. His book “The Final Nite” (Ugly Duckling Presse - 2006) won the PEN Oakland National Book Award. His latest cds are “The Fallout of Dreams” with Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach (Roguart 2014), “ec(H)o-system” with the French art-rock group, the Snobs (Bambalam 2015) and the book/cd “Pretty in the Morning with the Snobs”(Bisou Records – 2019). He is a 2014 recipient of a Chevalier D’ le Ordre des Artes et Lettres. His recent books include “The Invisible Ray” (Overpass Press – 2016) with artwork by Shalom Neuman, “Frozen Heatwave”, a collaboration with Yuko Otomo (Luna Bissonte Prods 2017) and Black Magic (New Feral Press 2017) and The Chicken Whisperer (Positive Manets – 2018). His newest book “where night and day become one – the french poems” (great weather for MEDIA 2018) received a 2019 IBPA award in poetr

Ron Kolm's latest collection of poetry is Welcome to the Barbecue. He is an editor of the 6th Unbearables anthology, From Somewhere To Nowhere: The End of the American Dream and a contributing editor of Sensitive Skin magazine. He is the author of Divine Comedy, Suburban Ambush, Night Shift and A Change in the Weather. He's had work in Flapperhouse, Great Weather for Media, the Resist Much / Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance anthology, Maintenant, Live Mag!, Local Knowledge, The Opiate and the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. Ron’s papers were purchased by the New York University library, where they’ve been catalogued in the Fales Collection

Dean Kostos is a poet, translator, anthologist, and memoirist. He is the author of eight books. His collection, THIS IS NOT A SKYSCRAPER won the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award, selected by Mark Doty. He was the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Cultural Innovation grant. His memoir, THE BOY WHO LISTENED TO PAINTINGS, will be released this fall.

Stephanie Strickland’s 9 books of print poetry and 11 co-authored digital poems have garnered Brittingham, Sandeen, di Castagnola, and Best of the Net awards. She has been granted National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships. Her digital poems have been shown at the Library of Congress and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Strickland’s work in print and multiple media is being collected by the Rubenstein Library at Duke University. How the Universe Is Made, a volume of New & Selected Poems, has just been published. http://stephaniestrickland.com

Michael T. Young’s third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, was long-listed for the Julie Suk Award. His previous collections are The Beautiful Moment of Being Lost and Transcriptions of Daylight. He received a Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the Jean Pedrick Chapbook Award for his collection, Living in the Counterpoint. His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous journals including The Los Angeles Review, One, The Smart Set, Rattle, and Valparaiso Poetry Review. His poetry has also been featured on Verse Daily and The Writer’s Almanac.

COME TO MY BIRTHDAY READING 5/31

I am reading at Sidewalk for One Hundred Thousand Poets for Change Saturday, 9/26

The fifth annual One Hundred Thousand Poets for Change, New York City edition, will be held at the Sidewalk Cafe on Saturday, Sept. 26th. This event was curated by Valery Oisteanu, and will be MC'd by Ron Kolm,

Readers include Claudia Serea, Tom Walker, Allan Graubard, Kat Georges, Peter Carlaftes, Ronnie Norpel, Bill Wolak, Larissa Shmailo, David St-Lascaux, Yuko Otomo, Steve Dalachinsky, Shelley Miller, Carl Watson, Wanda Phipps, Jeff Wright, Ilka Scobie and Kelvin Daly.

All thanks to Michael Rothenberg for creating this wonderful world-wide event for peace!

Sidewalk Cafe
94 Avenue A, New York, NY 10009
6:00 pm

(212) 473-7373

Patient Women Launch Party 9/8 Featured in the Village Voice!

Delighted that our upcoming launch for Patient Women is featured in the Village Voice! You are all coming, right?
VILLAGE VOICE COVERAGE OF LARISSA'S LAUNCH PARTY

Save the date! The NYC Patient Women launch party 9/8

Friends, save the date! The NYC launch party will happen Tuesday, Sept. 8 at 7:00 pm at Uncle Vanya's, 315 W 54. Readings by Alexander Cigale, Steve Dalachinsky, Bonny Finberg, Patricia Spears Jones, Ron Kolm, Irina Mashinski, Yuko Otomo, Audrey Roth, Thaddeus Rutkowski, yours truly, and other special guests. More details as I get them.This event is sponsored by the Russian American Cultural Center, so it will be a blast. I absolutely hope to see every single one of you there!

Patient Women

What People Are Saying about #specialcharacters

At one point in #specialcharacters, Larissa Shmailo declares: “Mother Kali, you have made me what I am: feminine, brilliant, entirely without fear” — and the rest of the poems in this collection prove this true. They run the gamut from being outspoken to outrageous, irreverent to downright heretical, taking gleeful pride in knowing exactly how far is too far – and then going even further. I see this work as a continuum in a long tradition of radical writing practices from Futurism, to Dada, to Oulipo, to Pussy Riot. Read it when you wish to be empowered. Read it when you wish to be entertained. Read it to rid yourself of the precious and polite.
—Elaine Equi

This is a thrilling book of femininity and magic. When it comes to capturing the intimacy of pain, Larissa Shmailo is among the most daring poets of her generation. When speaking of human rights, she is a human flame. She is subtle and provocative, fresh and out of bounds. You will fall in love here, and you will be loved right back.
—Philip Nikolayev

With #specialcharacters where even the title is special Shmailo has managed to split language into its common & least common denominators/principles: sound, meaning, symbol, feeling (text/ure) as well as providing us with a range of voices from child to adult & male to female within a range of styles & mannerisms from the ultra-experimental to quirky “innocent” rhymes like her sexy riff on “the 12 days of Christmas” in her classic “The Other Woman’s Cunt.” Her knowledge of the “WORD” & how to use it extends from darkly humorous to warm, lyrical, tender & painful . . . This is a major work by a major poet.
—Steve Dalachinsky

The opening piece catches the first 12 Fibonacci numbers and finesses them into giddy remembrances of an octogenarian's most significant birthdays. Then, the pages of poetry spiral with the 89 year old, ever outwards, or perhaps inwards, toward her infinity. Stream of consciousness narration, witty footnoted asides, plays with parentheses and fonts . . . Shmailo's poetry sucked me into/out of its golden spiral.
—Moira Richards, Cape Times (South Africa)

I thought this was going to be all poetry, but it is much more experimental than that, ending with a wonderful piece about a woman who is close to the end of the line with aging, mental illness, and poverty. It's called "MIRROR, or a Flash in the Pan." It is very close to fiction, although it certainly has passages of poetry. It's an excellent piece, crystal clear and shockingly honest. The collection also includes what is rightfully maybe Shmailo's most famous (popular?) poem . . . "The Other Woman's Cunt". This one is angry, raunchy, vicious and — by the way! — hilarious. There is a fair amount of typographical experimentation and deep connections to literature and mythology, but at its heart, as a whole, the book has the remarkable quality of being extremely moving even when you aren't sure what's going on.
—Meredith Sue Willis, Books for Readers

Dalachinsky, King, Kolm, Nikolayev, Penton, Shmailo, Vincenz 5/11

NYC Launch of #specialcharacters May 11!

Reactions to Larissa Shmailo's new poetry collection, "#specialcharacters"

This is a thrilling book of femininity and magic. When it comes to capturing the intimacy of pain, This Larissa Shmailo is among the most daring poets of her generation. When speaking of human rights, she is a human flame. She is subtle and provocative, fresh and out of bounds. You will fall in love here, and you will be loved right back.
—Philip Nikolayev

At one point in #specialcharacters, Larissa Shmailo declares: “Mother Kali, you have made me what I am: feminine, brilliant, entirely without fear” -- and the rest of the poems in this collection prove this true. They run the gamut from being outspoken to outrageous, irreverent to downright heretical, taking gleeful pride in knowing exactly how far is too far – and then going even further. I see this work as a continuum in a long tradition of radical writing practices from Futurism, to Dada, to Oulipo, to Pussy Riot. Read it when you wish to be empowered. Read it when you wish to be entertained. Read it to rid yourself of the precious and polite.
—Elaine Equi

With #specialcharacters where even the title is special Shmailo has managed to split language into its common & least common denominators/principles: sound, meaning, symbol, feeling (text/ure) as well as providing us with a range of voices from child to adult & male to female within a range of styles & mannerisms from the ultra-experimental to quirky “innocent” rhymes like her sexy riff on “the 12 days of Christmas” in her classic “The Other Woman’s Cunt.” Her knowledge of the “WORD” & how to use it extends from darkly humorous to warm, lyrical, tender & painful. She explores every facet of lives lived, be it endangered turtles, abused women or battered men. Her passion & compassion know no bounds. “Between cause & effect…choose this” BOOK, at times a “woeful bedtime tale” & “a light in the bedroom” or any room, any space anywhere in the world. It is a book of verse one should return to “again & again.” A book about “creation,” “alive as snow,” these poems “glisten like apples in the dying sun.” When Shmailo refers to “Steven’s old bones” this “unorthodox jew” can only think of the pleasure his old bones derive from reading these rejuvenating pages. This is a major work by a major poet.
—Steve Dalachinsky

Now available from Amazon and Unlikely Books.

NYC Launch of #specialcharacters by Larissa Shmailo

This event celebrates Larissa Shmailo's new poetry collection #specialcharacters (Unlikely Books) with readings by Amy King, Philip Nikolayev, Steve Dalachinsky, Marc Vincenz, and emcees Ron Kolm and Jonathan Penton.

About #specialcharacters:

"This is a thrilling book of femininity and magic. When it comes to capturing the intimacy of pain, Larissa Shmailo is among the most daring poets of her generation. When speaking of human rights, she is a human flame. She is subtle and provocative, fresh and out of bounds. You will fall in love here, and you will be loved right back."

—Philip Nikolayev-

"I see this work as a continuum in a long tradition of radical writing practices from Futurism, to Dada, to Oulipo, to Pussy Riot. Read it when you wish to be empowered. Read it when you wish to be entertained. Read it to rid yourself of the precious and polite."

—Elaine Equi -

"This is a major work by a major poet."

—Steve Dalachinsky

Bowery Poetry Club Sunday May 11 1pm Tickets $15

SUNDAY, MARCH 10: UNLIKELY HATTERS II

MadHat Presents and Unlikely Stories: Episode IV  are teaming up to bring you a literary evening worth setting your clock for.

New Yorkers Alexander Cigale, Steve Dalachinsky, Dana Golin, Susan Lewis, Yuko Otomo and Larissa Shmailo will be there, bringing you visions global and interdimensional. And Jonathan Penton will be on hand from Louisiana, drinking your oil spills and stealing your toothpaste.

Our writers will be accompanied by Leon Dewan of Dewanatron, inventor of the Swarmatron, the crazed electronic genius described at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2011/01/24/110124ta_talk_paumgarten .

The whole thing goes down at 6:30 pm at le poisson rogue, 158 Bleeker St., New York, in the gallery. Come recover from the AWP Conference with us, or just gloat that you had more sense than to go!

You can learn more about the Unlikely series at http://www.unlikelystories.org/ and the MadHat family at http://www.madhatarts.com/ .

(le) poisson rouge

158 Bleecker Street, New York, New York 10012

Sun March 10 6:30 pm

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The Unbearables vs. The Feminist Poets in Low-Cut Blouses for 100 Thousand Poets

The YouTubes are here!

part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOhiTW2r8b0&feature=relmfu
javascript:void(0); Larissa Shmailo--hostess, Bob Holman with musician Al Haji Papa Susso, Jim Feast--emcee, Tsaurah Litzky, Patricia Carragon, Thad Rutkowski, Sarah Sarai, Chavisa Woods, Shmailo, Jordan Zinovich, Annie Pluto.

part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jycWHQqv-eQ&feature=relmfu
Jim Feast--emcee, Bonnie Finberg, Jane Ormerod, Rob Hardin, Patricia Spears Jones, Ron Kolm, Elizabeth Macklin, Susan Scutti, Madeline Artenberg.

part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdewRx3Z9cc&feature=relmfu
Audrey Roth, Jim Feast--emcee, Tom Savage, Sparrow, Steve Dalachinsky, Ronnie Norpel, Carl Watson, Bernard Block, Yuko Otomo, David Henderson, Mitch Corber.