Dear all,
A conversation about Sentiment & Sentimentality with Sarah Busse, Cathryn Cofell, Fabu & Chuck Rybak & organized by Wendy Vardaman has been published in the latest issue of Verse Wisconsin. Also, an excerpt of a poem I wrote about the Wisconsin uprising is being reprinted in Turn Up the Volume: Poems on the States of Wisconsin, a limited edition, hand-bound chapbook available NOW through October 25 for pre-publication purchase ($15 + $2 for postage). After Oct. 25, the price will be $20 + postage. Click on donation, SPECIFY CHAPBOOK ORDER and number of books in comment box and order directly through the First Amendment Protection Fund online.
I’ll also be reading &/or participating in the events below. Hope to see you there!
1) Poetry & Pints, Harmony Brewing Co, Grand Rapids, MI, 10/13, 8pm EDT
2) PERFORMANCE POETRY: First Wave @ Wisconsin Book Festival, Madison, WI, 10/18, 5:30pm CST
3) Red Rover Series Experiment #68: Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, Outer Space Studios, Chicago, IL, 10/19, 7pm,
Ching-In
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1) Poetry & Pints, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Readings by Ching-In Chen, Zoe Addison, Nikki Wallschlaeger, and Cynthia Spencer
Harmony Brewing Company 1551 Lake Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49506, 8pm EDT, Sun, 10/13
Ching-In Chen is the author of The Heart’s Traffic and co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities. They are a Kundiman, Lambda and Norman Mailer Poetry Fellow and a member of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation and Macondo writing communities. A community organizer, they have worked in the Asian American communities of San Francisco, Oakland, Riverside and Boston. In Milwaukee, they are cream city review’s editor-in-chief. http://www.chinginchen.com
Zoe Addison explores mysticism, power, and subjectivity in her poems. Her poem “Apocalysm” was published on Everyday Genius. She co-authored and co-produced the interactive hypertext document &c.&c.&c.&c.&c.&c.&c.&c.&c. with Cynthia Spencer (tinyurl.com/etcpoetry).
Nikki Wallschlaeger’s work has been featured in DecomP, Esque, Word Riot, Spork, Great Lakes Review and others. A chapbook is forthcoming from Strange Cage. She lives in Milwaukee, WI and considers the Midwest one of the bestplaygrounds to live in, where all the worst bullies and the best lovers live, all at once, arguing on themonkey bars over the wet cement. You can reach her at nikkiwallschlaeger@gmail.com
Cynthia Spencer is the author of three solo chapbooks: in what sequence will my parts exit (Plumberries Press, 2011), MERCY (Pity Milk Press, 2012) and 3/THREE/III (Strange Cage, 2013). She has worked collaboratively on just about everything else she has ever done with Chelsea Tadeyeske, Zoe Addison, Edwin R. Perry and others. These things include the Cloudburst and Empty Room reading series, a chapbook of math-inspired poems called THERE EXISTS… and a hypertext called etcetcetcetcetcetcetcetcetc available at http://tinyurl.com/etcpoetry. She lives in Milwaukee and recently starting playing the ukulele.
2) PERFORMANCE POETRY: First Wave @ Wisconsin Book Festival
10/18/2013 – 5:30pm
Overture Center for the Arts – Promenade Hall
Poetry and Performance were once a united art, going back to common ancient roots. In the last few centuries, this connection has largely been lost. This event will point to some of the ways back, bring “page” poets and “stage” poets together across multiple divides:page/stage/class/race/gender/age. OMAI presenters, Lemon Andersen and Gia Scott-Heron, will provide feedback alongside Verse Wisconsin responders, Margaret Rozga, Ching-In Chin, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, and Andy Gricevich
3) Red Rover Series Experiment #68: Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics
Featuring:
Oliver Bendorf
Ching-In Chen
Meg Day
TT Jax
Stacey Waite
& guest curated by Jen (Jay) Besemer
at Outer Space Studio
1474 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL
suggested donation $4
Saturday, Oct. 19, 7pm / doors lock 7:30pm
logistics —
near CTA Damen blue line
third floor walk up
not wheelchair accessible
About the new anthology published by Nightboat Books:
The first of its kind, Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics edited by TC Tolbert and Tim Trace Peterson, gathers together a diverse range of 55 poets with varying aesthetics and backgrounds. In addition to generous samples of poetry by each trans writer, the book also includes “poetics statements”—reflections by each poet that provide context for their work covering a range of issues from identification and embodiment to language and activism.
OLIVER BENDORF’s book, The Spectral Wilderness, was chosen by Mark Doty for the 2013 Wick Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Kent State University Press. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, where he recently earned his MFA and now teaches creativity, comics, and composition.
JEN JAY BESEMER is the author of several poetry books and chapbooks, including Telephone, Object with Man’s Face, Quiet Vertical Movements, Ten Word Problems, and What Is Born. A new chapbook, Aster to Daylily, is forthcoming in 2014 from Damask Press. Jay’s recombinant poetry projects are also found in Monsters & Dust, Aufgabe, Drunken Boat, BlazeVOX, e-ratio, Sentence and other delicious publications. Jay also writes feature essays and reviews, and teaches art and poetry workshops in and beyond Chicago. To find out more, visit www.jenbesemer.com.
CHING-IN CHEN is author of The Heart’s Traffic (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press) and co-editor of The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities (South End Press). They are a Kundiman, Lambda and Norman Mailer Poetry Fellow and a member of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation and Macondo writing communities. A community organizer, they have worked in the Asian American communities of San Francisco, Oakland, Riverside and Boston. In Milwaukee, they are cream city review’s editor-in-chief. See www.chinginchen.com.
MEG DAY, recently selected for Best New Poets of 2013, is a 2013 recipient of an NEA Fellowship in Poetry and the author of When All You Have Is a Hammer (winner of the 2012 Gertrude Press Chapbook Contest) and We Can’t Read This (winner of the 2013 Gazing Grain Chapbook Contest). A 2012 AWP Intro Journals Award Winner, Meg has also received awards and fellowships from the Lambda Literary Foundation, Hedgebrook, Squaw Valley Writers, and the International Queer Arts Festival. Meg is currently a PhD fellow in Poetry & Disability Poetics at the University of Utah.
TT JAX is a parent, poet, mixed media artist, and writer living in the Pacific Northwest by way of 28 years in the Deep South.
STACEY WAITE is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln and has published four collections of poems: Choke (winner of the 2004 Frank O’Hara Prize), Love Poem to Androgyny, the lake has no saint (winner of the 2008 Snowbound Prize from Tupelo Press), and Butch Geography (also from Tupelo Press in 2013). Waite is the co-host of Prairie Schooner’s podcast “Air Schooner” and has individual poems appearing most recently in Bloom, The Indiana Review, and Heart Quarterly. One of Waite’s poems from Troubling the Line was selected by Denise Duhamel and David Lehman for Best American Poetry 2013.
Sunslick Starfish 