Pocket Lab Reading Series

Thursday, November 3

2011-10-09T23:58:00.000-07:00

Thursday, 11/3/2011

Rebecca Lehmann is the author of Between the Crackups, forthcoming from Salt Publications. Her poems have been published in Tin House, The Iowa Review, The Gettysburg Review and other journals. She lives in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Mike Sikkema is the author of the chapbooks Code Over Code (Lame House Press), Saying Things as an Engine Would (HNG MN), I Could Jump Through the Keyhole in Your Door (Horse Less Press), Autogeography, which is a collaboration with Jen Tynes (Black Warrior Review), and Wander Rooms and Outside Noise (forthcoming from Grey Book Press). He is also the author of the book Futuring (Blazevox).

Jeffrey Skemp is a poet, performer and photographer living in Minneapolis. His debut poetry + music CD SPENT was released earlier this year. He is also member of Bosso Poetry Co.

Jen Tynes is the founding editor of Horse Less Press. She is most recently the author of Heron/Girlfriend (Coconut Books) and the co-author, with Michael Sikkema, of Autogeography (Black Warrior Review). She has chapbooks forthcoming from DoubleCross Press and Dancing Girl Press, and she lives and teaches in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Joshua Ware lives in Lincoln, Nebraska where he is finishing his doctorate in poetry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the author of Homage to Homage to Homage to Creeley (Furniture Press), the chapbooks Excavations (Further Adventures Press) and A Series of Ad Hoc Permutations (Scantily Clad Press), as well as the co-author of I, NE: Iterations of the Junco (Small Fires Press). His writing and collages have appeared in many journals, such as American Letters & Commentary, Colorado Review, New American Writing, New Orleans Review, and Quarterly West.

Thursday, September 1

2011-08-24T08:35:00.000-07:00

Joshua Edwards is the director and co-editor of Canarium Books. He's the author of Campeche (Noemi Press 2011) and the translator of María Baranda's Ficticia (Shearsman Books 2010). Currently a lecturer at Stanford University, he'll be a fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude next year. Read a segment of his poem, "Position Effect," here.

Robert Fernandez is the author of We Are Pharaoh (Canarium Books 2011) and Pink Reef (forthcoming Canarium 2013). He is the recipient of awards from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry. Read some of his poems (and a conversation with Zach Savich) here.

A.T. Grant lives in Minneapolis. He has a band called New South Bear. You can hear them here: newsouthbear.bandcamp.com>. He wants to play music or read poems in your house (or garage or at your river bank or boxing ring). His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Spork, Sixth Finch, Radioactive Moat, Forklift OH and elsewhere.

Colleen McCarthy lives in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis and teaches yoga around the Twin Cities. Colleen is the creator of ALCHEMY: yoga for creativity, a beginners-level class that melds rhythmic movement and breathing with creative expression like journaling and making art. For updates on available classes, visit http://alchemyoga.tumblr.com. Read some of her poems here and here.

Thursday, July 7

2011-06-28T23:10:00.000-07:00

Thursday, July 7 at 7pm, hear some writing from these fine poet-folk:

Emily August is a PhD Candidate in English at Vanderbilt University, where she is writing a dissertation about the relationship between nineteenth-century medical textbooks, surgical practices, mortuary and funerary aesthetics, anatomical exhibitions, and fairy tales. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota, and her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Hayden's Ferry Review, Quarterly West, and other journals.

Dan Boehl is a founding editor of Birds, LLC, an independent poetry publisher, which put out his book Kings of the F**king Sea, and will publish Emily Pettit's Goat in the Snow and Dan Magers' Partyknife this winter. His chapbook Les Miseres at les Mal-Heurs de la Guerre is available from Greying Ghost. He writes art reviews in Austin and works for the University of Texas.

Molly Sutton Kiefer is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota, where she is working on a sequence of poems addressing the experiences of the body and (in)fertility. Her recent chapbook, The Recent History of Middle Sand Lake, won the Astounding Beauty Ruffian Press poetry prize in December of last year. More information can be found at mollysuttonkiefer.com

Chris Tonelli is one of the founding editors of Birds, LLC, an independent poetry press. He also founded and curates the So and So Series and edits So and So Magazine. He is the author of four chapbooks, most recently No Theater (Brave Men Press) and For People Who Like Gravity and Other People (Rope-A-Dope Press), and his first full-length collection is The Trees Around. He teaches at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where he lives with his wife Allison and their son Miles.

Thursday, May 5

2011-04-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

Join us at the Rogue Buddha (357 13th Ave. NE) for LADIES' NIGHT, Pocket Lab Style! With poets Margit Ahmann, Terri Ford, and Dolly Lemke, and non-fictioneer Jennifer Tatum-Cotamagana.

Margit Ahmann is a book artist and printer living in Minneapolis. She is a member of the Artist Cooperative at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, where she prints and binds letterpress books of her design. She also coordinates printing for small publishers at BookMobile.

Miss Terri Ford attended the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College lo, back in the '50s. Since then she’s received numerous grants and awards, including a Kentucky Arts Council fellowship and an Ohio Arts Council fellowship. She was the Ohio Arts Council writer in residence at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts during the summer of 2000. Her first book of poems, Why the Ships Are She, was published by Four Way Books in 2001 and she was a fellow at Bread Loaf that same year. Miss Ford’s second book, Hams Beneath the Firmament, came out in 2007, also from Four Way Books. Her poems always appear in Forklift, Ohio because Matt Hart filches them first. Her work has also appeared in Ploughshares, Agni, Conduit and numerous other publications, including the anthologies Poetry Daily: The Best from the World’s Most Popular Poetry Website (Sourcebooks, 2003), Four Way Reader #2 (Four Way, 2002) and The Beach Book (Sarabande Books, 1999). She was profiled in June of 2004 in the Minneapolis newspaper City Pages as one of five Minnesota poets who might be the state Poet Laureate if Minnesota had one. She currently lives in triumph in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she hopes to change at least the lipstick on the face of Minnesota poetry.

Dolly Lemke received a MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago. Her poems are published or forthcoming in Columbia Poetry Review, Best American Poetry 2010, Umbrella Factory, Super Arrow, horse less review, and Mad Hatters' Review. She is currently a paper-pusher in downtown Chicago, Assistant Editor for Switchback Books, and Associate Editor for Arsenic Lobster. Interests include micro-brews, thrifting, and looking into becoming a librarian.

Jennifer Tatum-Cotamagana's work has appeared in 1913: A Journal of Forms, The Breadbox Parsons and South Loop Review's Creative Nonfiction + Art Online. She is a Nonfiction MFA candidate at Columbia College Chicago, the recipient of a Follett Fellowship and an assistant editor for Hotel Amerika. When she isn't writing small bios about herself, she is known to cut a rug on dancefloors in the Chicago area.

Thursday, March 10

2011-02-14T08:06:00.000-08:00

At the fabulous Rogue Buddha Gallery (357 13th Ave. NE), it's INVASION OF THE TALL POETS (and big-hearted writers):

Seth Michael Berg earned his MFA in poetry from Bowling Green State University in 2003 and since has been bouncing around the country teaching, tending bar, sculpting, writing, and occasionally snowshoeing. His first book, Muted Lines From Someone Else's Memory is the winner of Dark Sky Books 2009 book contest. Other poems and fiction can be found in Connecticut Review, Lake Effect, Word Riot, JMWW, 13th Warrior Review, Chiron Review, BlazeVOX, Pike Magazine, Disappearing City Literary Review, and Dark Sky Magazine, among others. Berg lives in Chaska with his photographer wife, Ashley, their supernatural son, Oak, and their Saint Bernard, Icarus. When not writing, Berg can most likely be found indulging his addiction to hot sauce or slowing down somewhere in a forest. Read some of his poems here.

Adam Fell’s first book of poems I AM NOT A PIONEER will be published in late March 2011 by H_NGM_N Books. He is the author of the chapbook Ten Keys to Being a Champion On and Off the Field (H_NGM_N 2010) and his poems have appeared in Tin House; Forklift, Ohio; Diagram; Crazyhorse; notnostrums; Sixth Finch; & Fou, among others. He teaches and lives in Madison, WI.

Dobby Gibson is the author of Polar (Alice James Books, 2005), which won the Beatrice Hawley Award; and Skirmish (Graywolf Press, 2009). He lives in Minneapolis. Read some of his poems here and here.

Matt Hart is the author of the poetry collections Who's Who Vivid (Slope Editions, 2006) and Wolf Face (H_NGM_N BKS 2010). A third full length collection, Light-Headed, will be published by BlazeVOX in the spring of 2011, and a fourth collection Sermons and Lectures Both Blank and Relentless will be published by Typecast in 2012. A co-founder and the editor-in-chief of Forklift, Ohio: A Journal of Poetry, Cooking & Light Industrial Safety, he lives in Cincinnati where he teaches at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Read some of his poems here.

Steve Healey is the author of two books of poetry–10 Mississippi and Earthling–both on Coffee House Press. He has published poems in numerous magazines, including American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Fence, and Jubilat, and in anthologies, including Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. He lives in Minneapolis, and has recently taught at Michigan State University, Macalester College, and the University of Minnesota.

Jen March is the creator of Co-Kisser productions, a new way to think about publishing poetry. Co-Kisser will be hosting a poetry-film festival in Minneapolis in October 2011. Please visit www.co-kisser.com for more information. Read some of her poems here and here.

Deborah Stein is a playwright based in Minneapolis and New York. Her plays have been produced and developed nationally at Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, the Theatre @ Boston Court, the Guthrie, Seattle Rep, Stages Rep, the Women’s Project, the Wilma Theatre, Live Girls!, Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival, and Theatre Artaud; in New York at the Public Theatre, Dance Theatre Workshop, and Ars Nova; and internationally in Poland, Ireland, Edinburgh (the Traverse) and Prague. Her writing is published in Theatre Forum, Play: A Journal of Plays, and The Best American Poetry of 1996. She has taught writing at Yale University, NYU, Parsons School of Design, and Brown University, where she received her MFA. She is the recipient of the 2010-2011 McKnight Advancement Grant at the Playwrights’ Center in Minneapolis, where she was also a two-time Jerome Fellow. Currently, she is a resident artist at HERE, a 2009-2011 Bush Artist Fellow, and a member of New Dramatists. Read about her most recent play here.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

2010-12-13T20:41:00.001-08:00

Laura Brandenburg is a former free-lance music writer from Minneapolis. She currently co-hosts The Riot Act Reading Series and is working on a MFA in Creative Writing from Hamline University. Read a poem by Laura here, and watch her read some of her poems here.

Originally from Tallahassee, Lightsey Darst writes, dances, writes about dance, and teaches in Minneapolis. Her book Find the Girl was published by Coffee House Press in April 2010, and her awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She also hosts the writing salon “The Works”. Read her poems here and here.

Adam Robinson lives in Baltimore, MD where he runs Publishing Genius, a small press. He has published two books, including Adam Robison and Other Poems, which has been nominated for the 2010 Goodreads Poetry Award. He contributes to the lit blog HTMLGiant, and plays music in Sweatpants, a rock band. Read some of his poems here and here.

Anne Shaw is the author of Undertow (Persea Books, 2007), winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including New American Writing, Black Warrior Review, Green Mountains Review, and Verse. Her website is www.anneshaw.org. Read her poems here and here.

John Dermot Woods is the author of The Complete Collection of people, places & things. He has a collection of comics, and collaborative novel, and a comic chapbook (from Double Cross Press) forthcoming in 2011. He edits the arts quarterly Action,Yes, organizes the online reading series Apostrophe Cast, and co-hosts the Soda Series in Brooklyn. He is a professor of English at SUNY Nassau Community College. Read one of his stories here and one of his comics here.

Joseph Young lives and writes in Baltimore, MD. His first book, Easter Rabbit, is out on Publishing Genius. He has written on art for a variety of magazines and newspapers, and some of this writing can be found on Baltimore Interview. He is fond of collaboration and has created art exhibitions in concert with visual artists such as Christine Sajecki and Magnolia Laurie. Visit his microfiction blog and his website.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

2010-10-14T23:25:00.000-07:00

BACK AT THE BUDDHA!
7PM!
The scientists loooove you!

Nick Demske lives in Racine, Wisconsin, and works there at the Racine Public Library. He was awarded the 2010 Fence Modern Poets Series prize for a self-titled manuscript that will be published in November of 2010. He's a curator of the BONK! Performance series, a founder of the Racquetball Chapbook Tournament & Press and is also an editor of the online venue boo: a journal of terrific things. Visit him sometime at nickipoo.wordpress.com

Cindra Halm likes to write, read, dance, play with her niece and nephew, and hang out at Lake Superior. Her poetry chapbook, Inflectional Weather is published by Press of the Taverner, and she has published poems, stories, essays, articles, and reviews. She writes often for Rain Taxi Review of Books, and has taught at The Loft Literary Center for years. Her love affair with language continues to make many shapes and she often describes her poems as delving into physics and metaphysics.

Adrianne Mathiowetz is a Minneapolis-based freelance writer, site editor and photographer, whose stories have appeared on the Chicago Public Radio podcast Love and Radio. She blogs at openopenclose, and her self-published book of poems, These Quiet Repairs, can be found on Lulu.

Brian Oliu is originally from New Jersey and currently lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. His work is featured/forthcoming in Hotel Amerika, Hobart, Ninth Letter, New Ohio Review, DIAGRAM, Sonora Review, and elsewhere.

Joseph P. Wood is the author of two books--I & We (CW Books) and the forthcoming Fold of the Map (Salmon Poetry)--and five chapbooks. He is director of the Slash Pine Poetry Festival and the Slash Pine Writer Hikes and whatever harebrained event he can think of. He lives in Tuscaloosa with his wife, Amy, and daughter, Daisy. Read some of his poems here and here.

Thursday, September 2, 7pm

2010-08-12T08:55:00.000-07:00

New Location!

at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts
in the Open Book Building
1011 Washington Ave. S., First Floor

Sarah Fox is a doula and an instructor of Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota, where she's currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry. Her book Because Why was published by Coffee House Press, and recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Conduit, ElevenEleven, Action Yes, Spout, Rain Taxi, and Tammy. She also writes for the blog Montevidayo (montevidayo.com). She and her partner John Colburn live in Northeast Minneapolis where they grow entheogenic plants and co-imagine a future Center for Visionary Poetics.

Kira Henehan was born in New York and grew up in various locales around the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean. Her work has been published in Fence, jubilat, Chelsea, Conjunctions, and Denver Quarterly, among others. She has also received a Pushcart Prize and been included in A Best of Fence: The First Nine Years anthology. Henehan attended San Francisco State University and Columbia University, and now lives in New York City. Her first novel, Orion You Came And You Took All My Marbles, was recently published by Milkweed Editions.

David Dodd Lee is the author of seven books of poems, most recently The Nervous Filaments (Four Way Books 2010), Sky Booths in the Breath Somewhere: The Ashbery Erasure Poems (BlazeVox 2010) and Orphan, Indiana (University of Akron Press, forthcoming Fall 2010). He teaches at Indiana University South Bend, where he is also editor in chief of 42 Miles Press.

Eric Lorberer has published poems in dozens of literary magazines, from American Poetry Review to VOLT, and won a SASE/Jerome Fellowship for his poetry. His essay "The Ashbery Bridge: Poetry and Public Space" was named a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2008. He edits Rain Taxi Review of Books and runs the Rain Taxi Reading Series and the Twin Cities Book Festival.

Louise Mathias is the author of Lark Apprentice, which won the New Issues Poetry Prize and was published by New Issues Press in 2004, as well as the chapbook Above All Else, the Trembling Resembles a Forest, which Martha Ronk chose for the Burnside Review Chapbook Prize (2010). She splits her time between Joshua Tree, California, and rural Indiana. Read three of her poems here.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

2010-06-17T07:35:00.000-07:00

Join us at the Rogue Buddha Gallery (357 13th Ave. Northeast) from 7-9 for poetry, conversation, and a celebration of Pocket Lab's first birthday. This little reading series is growing up...

Readers:

Stephanie Anderson is the author of the chapbooks In the Particular Particular (New Michigan Press), The Choral Mimeographs (dancing girl press), The Nightyard (forthcoming, Noemi Press), and A Spot A Scheme (forthcoming, Cinematheque Press). She edits Projective Industries and lives in Chicago. Read her poems, "Following the Slideshow, I Let the Starling" and "In the Fall the Threshers Came," here.

BJ Love is the author of Michigander (Greying Ghost) and the forthcoming We are Two Bastards (Indivia). Additionally, he is an MFA candidate in the Writer's Workshop at Iowa. Read his poem, "Of birds, binoculars & grade school anatomy," here.

Matt Mauch grew up in small Midwestern towns between the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, in the snow and wind-chill belt. He is the author of Prayer Book (forthcoming from Lowbrow Press) and the chapbook The Book of Modern Prayer (Palimpsest Press). His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in DIAGRAM, The Journal, Willow Springs, The Squaw Valley Review, The Los Angeles Review, Sonora Review, and elsewhere. The editor of Poetry City, USA, Volume 1 (forthcoming from Lowbrow Press), Mauch teaches writing and literature in the AFA program at Normandale Community College, and also coordinates the reading series there. Read his poem, "Lesser Gods," here.

Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen received her MFA in Creative Writing at Mills College where she was awarded the Mary Merrit Henry Prize in Poetry and the Ardella Mills Literary Composition Prize in Creative Non-Fiction. Her work has been published in several journals and anthologies and she has performed at numerous venues including Kearny Street Workshop’s APAture 8 & 9, San Francisco’s Litcrawl and Writers with Drinks. In addition to writing, Anh-Hoa is the founder of Pomelo Press, and creates self-published and hand bound artists books and is a photographer, printmaker and performer. Read her poem, "Breath of Wonder," here.

Lucas Pingel received his MFA from the University of Minnesota in 2009. He has published two chapbooks, most recently, All Types of Breath Included from Further Adventures Press. His poetry has also appeared or is forthcoming from The North American Review, Cant, Ellipsis, and The William and Mary Review. Read excerpts from his chapbook, The Storm That Killed the Tree, here.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

2010-04-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

Don't make the monkeys angry. Come to the Rogue Buddha Gallery. We'll be waiting.

Mark Ehling is a writer living in Minneapolis. His short fiction has appeared nationally--in magazines such as Utne Reader, Denver Quarterly and The New Orleans Review--and his short film, "How to Live Better," is currently screening at local festivals and at the Walker Art Center's Film + Video bay. Visit his blog here.

colleen mccarthy writes poems that conceive of women's power as a renewable resource, welling up in the shadow of the nuclear reactor, and fueled by the subversion of names like hysteric or sorceress. she's developing a course that integrates yoga and poetry writing to empower students towards inner change and community activism, and has been invited to pilot her program this summer at the San Francisco chapter of 826 Valencia, a popular free writing workshop for youth. colleen will earn her certification as a yoga instructor this july, and her mfa from the university of minnesota next may. her poems have appeared in dear camera.

Kevin O’Rourke is an MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota, where he served as the poetry editor of Dislocate 5. New work can be found in Tammy, 580 Split, and at 300 Reviews.com.

William Reichard is a writer, editor, and educator. His fourth collection of poems, Sin Eater, will be published by Mid-List Press in April 2010. His previous collections include This Brightness (2007) and How To (2004) both from Mid-List Press, and An Alchemy in the Bones (1999) from New Rivers Press. Reichard has published a chapbook, To Be Quietly Spoken, with Frith Press, and he revised and edited the award-winning memoir, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser's: A Gay Life in the 1940's, by the late Ricardo Brown, published my the University of Minnesota Press.

Nate Slawson edits the online magazine dear camera and designs books for Cinematheque Press. He is the author of the chapbooks a mixtape called Zooey Deschanel (Line4, 2009) and The Tiny Jukebox (H_NGM_N Books, 2009). Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in diode, H_NGM_N, Typo, Forklift Ohio, Cannibal, DIAGRAM, and other places.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

2010-02-12T21:05:00.001-08:00

7 pm at the Rogue Buddha Gallery: James Cihlar, Adam Clay, Chloe Joan Lopez, Bronwen Tate, and Elizabeth Workman. You won't want to miss this one--trust us.

Writer bios:

James Cihlar’s book of poems, Undoing, was published by Little Pear Press of Seekonk, MA, in 2008. His poems have appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Quercus, Bloom, Minnesota Monthly, The James White Review, Briar Cliff Review, Verse Daily, and in the anthologies Aunties (Ballantine 2004), Regrets Only (Little Pear Press), and Nebraska Presence (Backwaters Press). The recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship for Poetry and a Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner, Cihlar lives in St. Paul.

Adam Clay is the author of The Wash. His second book, A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions. He co-edits Typo Magazine, curates the Poets in Print Reading Series at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center, and teaches at Western Michigan University.

Originally from New Mexico, Chloe Joan Lopez holds an A.B. in physics from Harvard University and an M.A. from the Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University. She was the winner of the 2009 Red Hen Press Ruskin Art Club Poetry Award, a finalist for the 2006-2007 Writing Fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the 2008 Andres Montoya First Book Prize, and was recognized in 2006 by the Artist's Grant program of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Her work has appeared in Los Angeles Review, can we have our ball back?, Spoon River Poetry Review, Mississippi Review, and other journals, and a chapbook, Quodlibet, is now available from New Michigan Press. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Bronwen Tate is the author of the chapbooks Souvenirs (Dusie 2007), Like the Native Tongue the Vanquished (Cannibal Books 2008) and Scaffolding (Dusie 2009). She is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at Stanford University, where she edits Mantis: A Journal of Poetry, Criticism and Translation. She blogs about cooking and knitting at Bread and Jam for Frances.

Through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Elisabeth Workman has served as a poet-in-residence, conducting workshops in schools throughout rural Pennsylvania. More recently, she taught writing and rhetoric to international students in the Middle East. Her work has appeared in fourW, Absent, Abraham Lincoln, diode, GlitterPony, and West Wind Review, among others. Her chapbooks include a city_a cloud, Opolis, and the forthcoming Maybe Malibu, Maybe Beowulf. She's the recipient of a 2009 Jerome Emerging Writer Award, and a 2010 MSAB Artist Initiative Grant.

Thursday Jan. 7

2009-12-30T13:13:00.000-08:00

Please join us at the Rogue Buddha Gallery (357 13th Ave., Northeast Minneapolis) at 7 pm to hear these fabulous readers:

Amara Hartman grew up in Minneapolis. She spends a lot of time thinking and imagining--sometimes to her detriment, often to her benefit.

Brad Liening is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. His poetry has appeared in over a dozen online and print journals, including H_NGM_N, Swink, Forklift, and Fou. He's a poetry editor at InDigest Magazine and he helps run Hell Yes Press, a DIY press that publishes poetry chapbooks and zines. He lives in Minneapolis.

Juliet Patterson’s first book, The Truant Lover, was a selected by Jean Valentine as the 2004 winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize and was a finalist for a 2007 Lambda Literary Award. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines including American Letters & Commentary, Indiana Review, Redivider, Swerve, and Verse. She edits poetry for Konundrum Literary Engine Review and teaches through the College of St. Catherine and Hamline University.

Nate Pritts is the author of The Wonderfull Yeare (forthcoming from Cooper Dillon) and two previous books of poems - Sensational Spectacular (BlazeVOX, 2007) and Honorary Astronaut (Ghost Road Press, 2008). A collaboration with painter Keith Gamache, Flutter By, is forthcoming from Cinematheque Press. He teaches poetry at the Downtown Writers Center/YMCA in Syracuse, NY.

Musical guest:

Eliza Blue, trained as a classical violinist, took up the fiddle after falling in love with folk music and soon began writing songs of her own. Guitar came next, and then mandolin and banjo. Her lush voice and intimate performance style have drawn comparisons to Margo Timmins, Gillian Welch, and Leonard Cohen. Recently, Eliza has shared the stage with: Roma di Luna, Billy Bragg, Kelly Joe Phelps, The Watson Twins, Fiona McBain of Ollabelle, and Charlie Parr. When not on the road, Eliza lives in Minneapolis with her two dogs, Micah and Lily.

In addition to our awesome musical guest, this reading will feature another treat: the Pocket Lab Chapbook Shop. Look for poetry chapbooks by local presses, as well as by Pocket Lab authors. Thanks to Rachel Moritz for her offer to shop-keep!

A word from our sponsors...

2009-12-29T01:15:00.000-08:00

I'd like to take a minute to give a big thank-you to our sponsor (and my employer), France 44. They've agreed to donate wine to the series--and all the yummy cheeses come from their fantastic cheese stores, which are not only full of delicious cheeses, but also charming and lovely people. Thanks, France 44!

November 5: it's on!

2009-10-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

Writer bios:

Kristoffer Diaz is a 2009-2010 Jerome Playwriting Fellow. His play The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity had its world premiere at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater in September, and will be produced here in Minneapolis by Mixed Blood in April.

Brian Laidlaw is a poet and songwriter from San Francisco. After several years of touring and rambling, he is currently working toward an M.F.A. in poetry at the University of Minnesota.

Rachel Moritz is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Night-Sea (2008) and The Winchester Monologues (2005), both from New Michigan Press. Her poems have been published in American Letters and Commentary, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, HOW2, Indiana Review, 26, typo, and Verse Daily. Among her awards are a 2008 SASE/Jerome grant, and a 2005 fellowship from the Minnesota State Arts Board. She edits poetry for Konundrum Literary Engine Review and publishes WinteRed Press, a Minneapolis-based micropress of innovative poetry.

Matt Rasmussen’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Cimarron Review, Mid American Review, MARGIE, New York Quarterly, Natural Bridge, Dislocate, and Water~Stone Review. He is currently a Bush Artist Fellow and has received grants and residencies from the Jerome Foundation, SASE, The Corporation of Yaddo, and The Anderson Center in Red Wing, MN. His chapbook, Fingergun, was published in 2006 by Kitchen Press.

November 5: Kristoffer Diaz, Brian Laidlaw, Rachel Moritz, Matt Rasmussen

2009-10-19T13:56:00.000-07:00

Rogue Buddha Gallery (357 13th Ave. NE Minneapolis)
7 p.m.

Poets! A playwright! Drinks and snacks!

More info. coming soon.

2009-07-09T22:23:00.000-07:00

Poet Bios:

Paula Cisewski's collection of poems, Ghost Fargo, was selected by Franz Wright for the 2008 Nightboat Poetry Prize and will be released in spring 2010. She is also the author of the collection Upon Arrival, and of three chapbooks: Two Museums (MaCaHu Press, 2009), Or Else What Asked the Flame (w/Mathias Svalina, Scantily Clad Press, 2008), and How Birds Work (Fuori Editions, 2002). Thanks to the assistance of a 2009 SASE/Jerome grant, she is currently at work on a hybrid text memoir titled Novelty Seekers Anonymous.

Lara Crombie holds a B.A. in studio art, writes mean-spirited, self-indulgent reviews for weheartmusic.com, and rarely speaks Asian. Read her work here.

Farrah Field's first book of poems, Rising, won Four Way Books' 2007 Levis Prize. Her poems have appeared in many publications including the Mississippi Review, Typo, Harp & Altar, Fulcrum, La Petite Zine, and are forthcoming in Ekleksographia and effing magazine. She lives in Brooklyn and blogs at adultish.blogspot.com.

Amy McCann has an MFA in poetry from Eastern Washington University and teaches writing at Northwestern College in Saint Paul. Her work has appeared in Third Coast, Hotel Amerika, Puerto del Sol, and other journals, as well as on mnartists.org.

Michael Walsh's first full-length book "The Dirt Riddles" won the Miller Williams Prize in Poetry from the University of Arkansas Press and will be published in Spring 2010. Red Dragonfly Press published his chapbook "Adam Walking the Garden" and will publish another, "Sleepwalks." His poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Chattahoochee Review, DIAGRAM, Meridian, and other journals.

Jared White received an MFA in poetry from Columbia University, and plays a fair amount of music, mostly on the piano. His poems have appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Barrow Street, Cannibal, Fulcrum, Coconut, Horse Less Review, Word For / Word, and Verse. He also published essays on poetry and music, most recently in Harp & Altar, Open Letters, and Poets Off Poetry. He was awarded a University Writing Prize from the Academy of American Poets. A chapbook of poems, entitled Yellowcake, was in Cannibal Books' Narwhal compendium. His very occasional blog, No No Yes No Yes, can be found at jaredswhite.blogspot.com.