Archive by Author

Bar-Nadav, Hadara 2015

Wednesday, October 21, 2015
with Jennifer Moore
Six Points Reading Series

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After the bombs
and the buildings blow
I call Clover, Clover,
and you appear–
a dream limned in smoke.

– Hadara Bar-Nadav, “Blur”

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Read this interview with Hadara Bar-Nadav from MLive:

Interview: Poet Hadara Bar-Nadav discusses her work, ‘the fracture of narrative and form’

Bar-Nadav will read from her work as part of the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center’s continuing Poets in Print reading series, beginning at 7 p.m. March 12 in Suite 103A of the Park Trades Building, at 326 W. Kalamazoo Ave.

I slept with all four hooves
in the air or I slept like a snail
in my broken shell.

– Hadara Bar-Nadav, “Lullaby (with Exit Sign)”

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Watch Hadara Bar-Nadav read her work:

Hadara Bar-Nadav Reads for Huffington Post

Hadara Bar Nadav reads from her newest collection of poetry Fountain and Furnace (Tupelo Press, 2015), which was awarded the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize.

More info on Hadara Bar-Nadav⇒

Moore, Jennifer 2015

Wednesday, October 21, 2015
with Hadara Bar-Nadav
Chicago Cultural Center

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I took aim and let the horseshoe go;
it hooked the stake in the sand and landed.
Two dead and three, then three ringers three.
Non-contact sports have their own erotic appeal.

– Jennifer Moore, “I Took Aim and Let the Horseshoe Go”

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Read this interview with Jennifer Moore from Memorious Mag:

Poetry Spotlight: Contributor Jennifer Moore

Jennifer Moore is the author of the newly released The Veronica Maneuver (University of Akron Press) and the chapbook What the Spigot Said (High5 Press). Her poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Best New Poets, Columbia Poetry Review, Barrow Street, and elsewhere, including Memorious, where the poem “The Veronica Maneuver” first appeared.

A bee died on the carpet. A bee died
and I vacuumed him up, a whole body gone.
Though it’s just an apparatus, a plastic wand,
it’s a privilege for the sucker to suck.

– Jennifer Moore, “A Bee Died on the Carpet”

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Watch this interview with Jennifer Moore:

More info on Jennifer Moore⇒

Mennies, Rachel 2015

Thursday, September 24, 2015
with Sara Henning
Chicago Cultural Center

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I grow a back for bearing, a mouth
for preference.
I want the garden green and gold
and red, to tongue
its nothing seeds, its shit.

– Rachel Mennies, “First Draft of the Teenage Girl”

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Watch Rachel Mennies read for the Chicago Poetry Center, with Sara Henning:

Read this interview with Rachel Mennies from Hayden’s Ferry Review:

http://haydensferryreview.blogspot.com/2012/03/where-are-they-now-rachel-mennies.html

It begins between pinched fingers,
the sting of salt inside a bitten nail.
When I first looked away from you,
I found two ants cresting the pantry door,
breadcrumb boulders in their mouths,
overwhelmed.

– Rachel Mennies, “Argument”

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More info on Rachel Mennies⇒

Henning, Sara 2015

Thursday, September 24, 2015
with Rachel Mennies
Chicago Cultural Center

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In your mouth I find the story of my body
you’ll trade for a psalm to grow in the snow,
psalm you’ll feed to starlings

– Sara Henning, “Aubade with Starlings and What Serenely Disdains to Destroy Us”

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Read this interview with Sara Henning from Rappahannock Review:

http://www.rappahannockreview.com/interviews/interview-sara-henning/

They’re calling them sisters, funnels grafted
to the same spine of rotating air, but I know
they’re lovers by how my jet turns wet
and reckless between squalls, by how the squalls
are raptured from the same nexus of desire.

– Sara Henning, “During the Tornado, I’m Thinking of Stars”

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Watch Sara Henning read for the Chicago Poetry Center, with Rachel Mennies:

The Poetry Center of Chicago: Six Points Reading Series

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More info on Sara Henning⇒

Lemke, Dolly 2015

Thursday, August 6, 2015
with Fred Sasaki
Chicago Cultural Center

Her words became us    a honey that hurt
Suppose we could describe movement
through bluestem and aster

– Dolly Lemke, “Girl Cento”

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Read this interview with Dolly Lemke from Columbia Poetry Reviews:

http://columbiapoetryreviews.colum.edu/dollhouse-reading-series-curators-dolly-

 however those unhappy flowers are spelt
I will make room for the ranunculus, there are many parts of the ringlets and facets.  Simple for the lichen
to mock the angel.  You could chart everything by the organization of this tree.

– Dolly Lemke, “Woman descending stairs as if a portrait is made upon arrival.”

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Watch Dolly Lemke read her work:

Dolly Lemke @ Poetry & Pints

Grand Rapids, 1.20.2013, Harmony Brewing Company

More info on Dolly Lemke⇒

Opal, Anthony 2015

Thursday, July 9, 2015
with Maggie Smith
Chicago Cultural Center

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you have lipstick on your collar I say
to my father the priest that’s just the Blood
of Christ my son he replies by and by
(the milky thigh of Mary in my mind)

– Anthony Opal, “Sonnet”

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Read this interview with Anthony Opal from The Conversant:

http://theconversant.org/?p=4074

dear god-and-a-half dear action painter
dear compassionate sloth and hammerhead
shark who willingly gave up the hammer

– Anthony Opal, “Action”

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More info on Anthony Opal⇒

Smith, Maggie 2015

Thursday, July 9, 2015
with Anthony Opal
Chicago Cultural Center

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It doesn’t matter
if this river is listening. It’s not
from around here, and it’s not staying. 

– Maggie Smith, “River”

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Read this interview with Maggie Smith from Tupelo Quarterly:

Wise & Fierce Beauty: Maggie Smith’s The Well Speaks of its Own Poison

When I encountered Maggie Smith’s poetry manuscript The Well Speaks of its Own Poison, winner of Tupelo Press’ 2012 Dorset Prize, I knew, immediately, that I was in the presence of the real thing. There is wise, fierce, and truthful beauty here, the muscular craft to carry it across time and place, and both the […]

There are fish in the black trenches
of the sea that look like rocks.
Their poison shouldn’t trouble me.

– Maggie Smith, “Stonefish”

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Watch this video adaptation of Maggie Smith’s poem “Good Bones”:

More info on Maggie Smith⇒

McConnell, Marty 2015; 2020

Thursday, June 11, 2015
with Joel Craig
Chicago Cultural Center
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Reading Series with Marty McConnell and Maya Marshall
The Martin

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Maybe it was the part in Runaway Bunny
where the mother rabbit grows wings
and becomes part bird to find her offspring
that grew in me a certainty that the disappeared
would always come back

– Marty McConnell, “The Gift”

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Read this interview with Marty McConnell from 300 Questions:

17/30: Ten Questions With Marty McConnell

Marty McConnellI saw this interview with Michael Jordan once where he talked about that game vs. The Blazers. The one where he hit all of those threes and shrugged. He said the game was happening in slow motion for him. That everything was coming at him, and he was absorbing all of it, becoming a…

the noise
from the party a backdrop
of garbled babble and laughter,
wind against the windows,
the occasional casualty of glass.

– Marty McConnell, “West Barry Street”

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Watch Marty McConnell read this poem:

More info on Marty McConnell⇒

Villanueva, R. A. 2015

Thursday, May 7, 2015
with Rachel Eliza Griffiths
Chicago Cultural Center

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Not vinegar. Not acid. Not
sugarcane pressed to mortar by
fist, but salt: salt, the home taste; salt,
the tide; salt, the blood.

– R. A. Villanueva, “Archipelagic”

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Read this interview with R. A. Villanueva from Divedapper:

DIVEDAPPER // R.A. Villanueva

“Poetry is trying, it seems to me, to conceive of how our universe works. “

Tonight, my mother paints her nails
 black—a shade she names, “Dark Matter.”
 She numbers what’s left of her cells,
 tells us of this burning inside
 her knees, laughs a promise to fight.

– R. A. Villanueva, “When Doves”

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Watch R. A. Villanueva read his work:

More info on R. A. Villanueva⇒

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