Erica Wright

A New Recommendation

Today on the train, Jorge Drexler’s song “Toíto cái lo traigo andao” came on my iPod, and suddenly I was a character from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, about to fall for an ass-headed man. Continue...

Live from the Homesick Jamboree

My latest review in ForeWord Magazine is of Adrian Blevins's Live from the Homesick Jamboree:

Although death is frequently evoked in Adrian Blevins’s latest collection, not even drowning can kill the speaker of these poems. As the title suggests, she is what’s coming live (electrified?) from the homesick jamboree. She is sometimes self-deprecating, as in “School of the Arts,” in which she refers to herself as “like some forever raggedy thing forever underwater.” However, there is no doubt of the character’s strength as she navigates her raucous childhood. What is momentarily perplexing is her nostalgia for those days. CONTINUE...

Loving Cyrus

This risque new poem by R. Dwayne Betts is now published at Guernica, HERE.

        You’ve learned it 34 years too late and it wrestles 
        with the story of Cyrus, 
        the first man you’ve known with a woman’s 
        curved breast...CONTINUE READING

Self-Portrait with Crayon by Allison Benis White

The poems of Self-Portrait with Crayon are haunted. There are no ghosts or goblins lurking, but rather an absent mother and Edgar Degas.

The two apparitions seem unconnected until Allison Benis White skillfully commingles them. The first poem of this collection, “From Degas’ Sketchbook,” finds the speaker hiding in a closet, imagining her mother: “The shoulders are the span of the hanger and the mind is the hook which suspends the entire dress.” It is as if the outline of the clothes allows her to color her mother into the picture and into the book. Continue...

Ping-Pong Launch Party and Reading

The Ping•Pong East Coast Launch Party at Happy Ending

The Henry Miller Library is pleased to announce the annual publication of Ping•Pong, a journal of the arts.  The editors continue to serve up the best artists from the the global art and literary scene by publishing a vibrant group of poets, writers, artists, and photographers. This issue continues Ping•Pong’s commitment to a cultural dialogue between contemporary artists and the aesthetics set forth by Henry Miller and Anais Nin.

The Ping•Pong East Coast Launch Party will take place at the Happy Ending Bar on Saturday, November 7th and will feature readings by contributors Cheryl Burke, Erica Wright, Jennifer Firestone, Whitney Porter, Kate Hall, Erika Lutzner, and Joey Cannizzaro, as well as editors Maria Garcia Teutsch  and Christine Hamm. Special guests (to be announced) will also perform. Readings will begin at 7:00 pm. The event is free and open to the public.

A Fall Recommendation

I blame James Fenimore Cooper for rampant literary disinterest in the United States. In their sophomore years of high school, millions of teenagers come to the simultaneous conclusion that novels are boring. Continue...

An Early Celebration

Richard Garcia's "Fugue of the New Year" is now published at Guernica, HERE: "The paper tries for an uplifting tone: / The murder rate is down." 

When She Named Fire: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by American Women

Unwieldy and heavy, promising as much backache as discovery, the poetry anthology is a staple of the college classroom. It is difficult to imagine such a text being as enjoyable as it is educational, but recently the anthology has gotten a makeover. Independent presses are tackling smaller areas of the poetic landscape, and the result is books that can be read cover to cover. When She Named Fire is substantive, weighing in at 461 poems, but it is not unmanageable. This text belongs on a nightstand as easily as it belongs in American Poetry 230--a credit to editor Andrea Hollander Budy. Continue...

The Guernica at 5! Benefit

On October 28th, Guernica Magazine will celebrate its 5th birthday with a gala at Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn. 

Jonathan Ames of Bored to Death (et al) will be reading, Didi Gutman of Brazilian Girls will be dj-ing, and Katie Halper of Laughing Liberally will be emceeing.  You also receive a FREE two-year subscription to TimeOut New York. 

And cheese and beer! We hope to see you there!

For more information, go HERE. To skip more information and just buy ticket, go HERE. 

Asking for Everything

A new poem by Lilah Hegnauer, author of Dark Under Kiganda Skies (Ausable Press), is now published at Guernica, HERE. Enjoy!