KOLM, RUTKOWSKI, AND WRIGHT AT LIT BALM 7/25!

KEITH, RUFFIN, AND OLIVAS AT LIT BALM 7/18

Genrebenders, join us for Lit Balm this Saturday at 5:00 pm EST for Fiction Night! We have a great show for you with Michael C. Keith, Maurice Carlos Ruffin and Daniel A. Olivas! Zoom in or watch us livestream on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/events/282279926334981/

Lit Balm Founders' Reading with John Yau, Elaine Equi, and Jerome Sala

This Saturday July 4 at 5:00 EST: Founders' Reading - Marc Vincenz, Jonathan Penton and I will read, as well as special guests John Yau, Elaine Equi, and Jerome Sala! Be sure to check it out, either in the Zoom room or Facebook Live!
https://www.facebook.com/events/744556266363891/

Every Saturday at 5pm US East Coast Time

Join our Zoom meeting

Join us on Facebook

See our archives on YouTube

"Looking Back on the Future of Poetry"

Join me and my LIT BALM co-hosts Marc Vincenz and Jonathan Penton this Sat 6/6 at 5:00 pm for a stimulating panel featuring Robert Archambeau, Mark Scroggins, and Sally Connolly on "Looking Back on the Future of Poetry" plus open mic. Don't miss this lively episode of LIT BALM!

https://www.facebook.com/events/666541577235960/

LIT BALM FOUNDERS CELEBRATE NEW AMERICAN WRITING

LIT BALM presents a special reading celebrating issue 38 of New American Writing with readings by Paul Hoover, Maria Baranda (Mexico). Alexandria Peary plus open mic this Sat May 30 at 5:00 pm! The Lit Balm founders Marc Vincenz of MadHat, Jonathan Penton of Unlikely Stories and emcee Larissa Shmailo of the Feminist Poets in Low Cut Blouses.will also read. Be sure to join us!
Every Saturday at 5:00 pm EST.
Zoom https://us04web.zoom.us/j/461603228
Livestream at https://www.facebook.com/LitBalm
Website: www.litbalm.org
YouTube: LIT BALM

AMY KING, KEVIN GALLAGHER, JOANNA SOLFRIAN AT LIT BALM MAY 23

LIT BALM is thrilled to present Amy King, Kevin Gallagher, and Joanna Solfrian plus open mic this Sat May 23 at 5:00 pm! Be sure to join us! Our question for this reading is "Which books would you take to a desert island?"
LIT BALM is a new weekly interactive livestream reading series brought to you by Jonathan Penton of Unlikely Stories Mark V and Unlikely Books, Marc Vincenz of MadHat and New American Writing (Magazine), and emcee Larissa Shmailo of the Feminist Poets in Low Cut Blouses.
Every Saturday at 5:00 pm EST.
Zoom https://us04web.zoom.us/j/461603228
Livestream at https://www.facebook.com/LitBalm
Website: www.litbalm.org
YouTube: LIT BALM

LAVENDER, BURNS, AND THE NEW ORLEANS POETRY FESTIVAL AT LIT BALM MAY 16

We have a special show this week Saturday May 16, 5:00 pm East Coast time at LIT BALM - Jonathan Penton will be interviewing Bill Lavender and Megan Burns about the NEW ORLEANS POETRY FESTIVAL and there will be lively NOLA readings, too! Join us!

LIT BALM is a new weekly interactive livestream reading series brought to you by Jonathan Penton of Unlikely Stories Mark V and Unlikely Books, Marc Vincenz of MadHat and New American Writing (Magazine), and emcee Larissa Shmailo of the Feminist Poets in Low Cut Blouses.
Every Saturday at 5:00 pm EST.
Zoom https://us04web.zoom.us/j/461603228
Livestream at https://www.facebook.com/LitBalm
Website: www.litbalm.org

SVOBODA, FINKELSTEIN, AND BICHER AT LIT BALM MAY 9

LIT BALM is thrilled to present Terese Svoboda, Kristina Andersson Bicher, and special guest Norman Finkelstein plus open mic! Our question for this reading is "What are you reading?"
LIT BALM is a new weekly interactive livestream reading series brought to you by Jonathan Penton of Unlikely Stories Mark V and Unlikely Books, Marc Vincenz of MadHat and New American Writing (Magazine), and emcee Larissa Shmailo of the Feminist Poets in Low Cut Blouses.
Every Saturday at 5:00 pm EST.
Zoom https://us04web.zoom.us/j/461603228
Livestream at https://www.facebook.com/LitBalm
Website: www.litbalm.org

LIT BALM - An Interative Livestream Reading Series

LIT BALM is a new weekly interactive livestream reading series brought to you by Jonathan Penton of Unlikely Stories Mark V and Unlikely Books, Marc Vincenz of MadHat and New American Writing (Magazine), and Larissa Shmailo of the Feminist Poets in Low Cut Blouses. This Saturday April 4 at 5:00 pm East Coast Time expect great writing, panels, special guests, chat, open mikes and YOU! Join the fun at https://us04web.zoom.us/j/949509843

SLY BANG LAUNCH - SAVE THE DATE!

AWP PORTLAND EVENTS

Please add my events to your AWP schedule! Both happen Thursday, March 28.

12:00 pm to 1:15 pm
Portland Ballroom 256, Oregon Convention Center, Level 2	R214. The Critical Creative: The Editor-Poet. (Marc Vincenz, Larissa Shmailo, Michael Anania, Amy King, Kwame Dawes) This panel will offer an insiders' look into poetry editorship and publication from poets who edit prominent journals and presses. How do these tandem roles, poet and editor, influence one another? Do they detract from or enhance poetry publishing? Does the critical mind impede the creative mind or strengthen it? How? Are certain poetic schools favored? Where does preference end and narrowness begin? Panelists will offer real-life anecdotes and insights on poetry selection and editing.  Check here to add to my schedule
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm
B116, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1	R223. Hybrid Sex Writing: What's Your Position?. (Larissa Shmailo, Jonathan Penton, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Cecilia Tan, Erica Jong) In The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault argues that sex was not repressed in past centuries, but codified. How does contemporary hybrid sex writing crack these codes? Is there a relationship between gender politics and hybrid writing? How does hybrid writing give voice to marginalized gender identities? What is hybrid ecstasy? Is there a special connection between transgressive sex and hybrid writing? Panelists will discuss these questions with a focus on 21st-century writers.

THREE REVIEWS IN NORTH OF OXFORD TOP 15!

Thrilled that THREE of my reviews have made the top 15 list for generating the most interest at North of Oxford! The fabulous books of poetry I reviewed are Thaddeus Rutkowski's BORDER CROSSINGS, Marc Vincenz's LEANING INTO THE INFINITE, and Michael T. Young's THE INFINITE DOCTRINE OF WATER'

READ NORTH OF OXFORD REVIEWS HERE

AWP 2019 PORTLAND PANELS

Here are my two back-to-back panels for AWP 2019 in Portland!
Thrilled to be presenting with the likes of Erica Jong, Amy King, Cecilia Tan, Kwame Dawes, Michael Anania, Marc Vincenz, Thaddeus Rutkowski, and Jonathan Penton!

Thursday, March 28, 2019
12:00 pm to 1:15 pm
Portland Ballroom 256, Oregon Convention Center, Level 2

R214. The Critical Creative: The Editor-Poet. (Marc Vincenz, Larissa Shmailo, Michael Anania, Amy King, Kwame Dawes) This panel will offer an insiders' look into poetry editorship and publication from poets who edit prominent journals and presses. How do these tandem roles, poet and editor, influence one another? Do they detract from or enhance poetry publishing? Does the critical mind impede the creative mind or strengthen it? How? Are certain poetic schools favored? Where does preference end and narrowness begin? Panelists will offer real-life anecdotes and insights on poetry selection and editing.

1:30 pm to 2:45 pm
B116, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1

R223. Hybrid Sex Writing: What's Your Position?. (Larissa Shmailo, Jonathan Penton, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Cecilia Tan, Erica Jong) In The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault argues that sex was not repressed in past centuries, but codified. How does contemporary hybrid sex writing crack these codes? Is there a relationship between gender politics and hybrid writing? How does hybrid writing give voice to marginalized gender identities? What is hybrid ecstasy? Is there a special connection between transgressive sex and hybrid writing? Panelists will discuss these questions with a focus on 21st-century writers.

TWO AWP PROPOSALS ACCEPTED FOR PORTLAND 2019!!!!

Spectacular news! Two AWP proposals I am participating in have been accepted for the 2019 Portland Conference! So thrilled to be moderating "Hybrid Sex Writing: What's Your Position?" with panelists Cecilia Tan, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Jonathan Penton, and extra-amazing special guest Erica Jong!!!!! I am also event organizer and panelist for "The Critical Creative: The Editor-Poet" with our brilliant moderator Marc Vincenz and wonderful panelists Amy King, Kwame Dawes, and Michael Anania! What incredible colleagues and what great panels! Looking forward to a brilliant literary spring in 2019!

My review of Marc Vincenz's LEANING INTO THE INFINITE

I am not a fan of the unadorned vernacular in poetry, no matter how sincere its sentiment or pertinent its message. In my book, what a poet should do is invent wonderful turns of phrases, new syntax, head-turning semantics. There should be a dialectic of differences which interacts to ­­create the magical, entirely new, entirely necessary synthesis. A poet should bring brilliant LANGUAGE to the reader, by which I more nearly mean semiotics, meaningful, culturally rich, innovative signs that the reader gets to deconstruct time and time again. If you are tired of reading monosyllabic laundry list poetry, then you will be delighted by Marc Vincenz, a poet who trucks in the unpredictable and unexpected, and who conjoins words like gems for jewelry.

In Leaning into the Infinite, Vincenz displays a magical imagination that mines from three continents and a dozen cultures. The language is literate and sparkling. Look at a typical title: “When Uncle Fernando Conjures Up a Dead-Bird Theory of Everything,” where Fernando is “Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa and his many alter egos . . .  written under more than seventy heteronyms.”  Other inspirations are Li Po, Wang Wei, Kafka, Paracelsus, Heraclitus, and Robert Bly. If Auden multitasked, if cummings studied alchemy, if Borges reincarnated into a Hong Kong-born British-Swiss living in America on a green card, you might get a Marc Vincenz.

Vincenz’s Infinite is a poetry of mind, a garden of images and ideas and characters that is uncannily aware of its reader. Perhaps all good poetry has this in common, this drawing of the reader in, like an accomplice to its art. Vincenz’s poetry engages and questions, implicitly and explicitly: “How?” “Should I?” “Who?” In “Unreliable Narrator,” he asks “Should I be / stumped / by the greatness / of God . . .”

Who then is

the protagonist

when trillions

of single cells

all think

for themselves?—or together?—

The poet asks and the spare Basho–like verses —and rich longlined poems later in the collection—wait for answer. The poet’s elegant use of line breaks and sculpted white space seem to invite readers to reply, to mark Leaning into the Infinite up with all kinds of marginalia.

We have a tradition in the European canon of the philosopher-poet, in which a poet offers insights into the human condition. Modern poets do so ponderously as a whole. Vincenz’s touch on this is so light and his language so original that you scarcely know you are being enlightened. His temporal range is from the nascent prehistory of cave paintings to the post-relativistic twenty-first century. His worlds are populated with extraordinary beings, including the aforementioned Uncle Fernando and his interlocutor, the oracular Sibyl. In “Uncle Fernando & Sibyl Exchange Curt Words,” Fernando asks for “that mythical moment” and the oracle replies, “Hush,”:

Carbon first.

Then light.

Sibyl, Vincenz’s untamed muse, also appears in dialogues between Prometheus and Orpheus:

Orpheus:                                             Prometheus:

The voice                                             & what

of time                                                 is that perfume—

 …                                                       . . .

within the planes                                 the word made

of being                                               Thing

…                                                        . . .

Sibyl:

whenever I start

to try & explain it

I forget words

altogether

My favorite characters in Leaning into the Infinite include a finch singing to his mate from a tree-top which he thinks is a mountain, the Tree God Saluwaghnapani, and Milen, a Filipino wet-nurse who sings a song she “claimed drove off demons that grew within Javan / smog clouds: Ai-Li-Ma-Lu-Ma-Nu — . . . “

Leaning into the Infinite ranges from Olympus to “The Penal Colony” and is vivid and visceral:

Not from the gagged mouth—it knots & tangles in the larynx

& the chain simply groans: ‘Have done it.

Have it etched to the bone.’

 It’s all in the pointed nib of the writers’ dark truth.

 In an enlightened moment the Bewildered gasps alone—

The Orwellian/Kafkaesque boot stamps:

Just                 Be                     

a        

      good Citizen

Be                    Just

And then the poet escapes to his natal Asia:

O to be born reforested in Borneo

 where water doesn’t run off in disappointing sloughs,

 but cascades & careens within the bejeweled heart

of a single fruiting tree, where a child is a rambutan

(or the fleshy dumpling-pulp of a mangosteen)— . . .

Vincenz speaks to the childlike longing in us to have a storyteller/mentor introduce us to the world’s mysteries, to share its secrets:

If only I had a good uncle to sit me down at an uneven hearth

with a hot cup of mulled wine, a twinkle in his eye

& this background whiff of ancient pine:

To hear how the world begins green, fresh, tabula rasa:

& late at night or early morning through air still as glass,

to eavesdrop upon the grasses & their endless philosophizing.

You have this uncle in Marc Vincenz. Drink up.

Bernstein, Nurkse, Equi, Shmailo, Kostos, Vincenz, Sala, Bliumis-Dunn

Bernstein, Equi, Shmailo, Nurkse, Vincenz October 12

AWP 2018 Panel "Semiformal" Accepted!!!!

Delighted to announce that my proposal, "Semiformal: Hybrid Formal Poetry and Free Verse" has been accepted as a panel at the 2018 Association of Writers and Writers Programs Conference in Tampa. Panelists are Timothy Liu, Marc Vincenz, Dean Kostos, Elizabeth Hodges and yours truly.

Here is our program:
Between the polarities of free and formal verse is a spectrum of hybrid poetry that utilizes the  treasures of both: inventiveness, innovative structures, rhyme and rhythm. This panel will present and analyze such hybrid poems, classic and contemporary, including work by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Patricia Smith, and Claudia Rankine. We will "out" free verse poets in their use of formal elements, discovering their metric codes, and discuss the impact of free verse on the evolution of form.

Hope to see you in Tampa!

Medusa's Monstrous Launch

Book Launch Party for Medusa's Country

Come celebrate the launch of my new book of poetry, Medusa's Country - and wish me a happy birthday! Readings by Marc Vincenz, Lee Ann Brown, Tim Fitts, Ron Kolm,and Irina Mashinski. Hosted by Dean Kostos. Refreshments will be served.
Tuesday, May 30, 6:00 pm
Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia Street  
New York, NY
$10 includes bar drink.