new news—and upcoming reading—
Manchester, a sequence of six poems from Ivy’s forthcoming solo collection, Tumult, Whitewash, and Stretch Marks, was selected as Honorable Mention by Enzo Silon Surin for the Samuel Washington Allen Prize, New England Poetry Club, August 2024. Other fabulous poets listed for prizes and mentions and shortlists are Andrea Cohen and Rebecca Faulkner. You can join Ivy and others at a Zoom reading of NEPC winners October 6. Please see our events page for information and how to register for the free Zoom link.
announcing a new publication by Ivy Schweitzer—
Within Flesh: In Conversation with Our Selves and Emily Dickinson, Poems with Al Salehi
available on Amazon
About: “Within Flesh” is a surprising and inventive conversation between two contemporary poets and Emily Dickinson about the national reckoning on race and injustice provoked by the Black Lives Matter movement. This original three-way communion crosses time, space, and cultural boundaries: Al Salehi is an Iranian-American Muslim who lives in California and Ivy Schweitzer is a Brooklyn-born Jew who lives in Vermont. Dickinson was, of course, the daughter of an elite Puritan family in rural Massachusetts in the mid-19th century. Yet despite these differences, they establish a profound connection. Cover art by Lesley Dill.
here’s what else is new and exciting
Wonderful new work from two long-time poetry buddies, with whom it was a privilege to workshop many of the poems in these new publications, and a young poet who has become like a second son to me.
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Ewa Chrusciel—a poet, translator and educator originally from Poland, just published her fourth book of poetry, Yours, Purple Gallinule (Omnidawn Press, 2022). It is a funny, brilliant and moving account of the mental health of birds, also beautifully illustrated.
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Lisa Furmanski, a remarkable poet and dedicated gerontologist, has self-published Two Bodies in a Room, a gripping and harrowing account of her medical training and subsequent work as a doctor to the elderly in rural New England. Evoking the stressful emotional labor that falls disproportionately on women, she explores her own struggles with burn-out, shows how this burden is driving female doctors out of the profession in droves, and makes a compelling case for fixing our broken system of medical training and the provision of care. You can order a hard copy or ebook from Lulu.com.
Lisa also has a chapbook of poetry titled Tunnel coming out in the spring from Finishing Line Press.
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Eliot Cardinaux has a new chapbook out titled Caprice, published by his own Bodily Press. This young and multiply talented poet continues to explore intensely lyrical poetry in the style of Paul Celan. Eliot is also an amazing pianist, improvisor and composer, and so prolific. Check out his three new albums:
“For Who Is King,” an improvised duo with Caleb Schmale, a pianist and saxophonist
“Deleted Scenes,” with Gary Fieldman (percussion) and Caleb Schmale
“Pavane,” a duo with Gary, which is absolutely gorgeous and includes a composition Eliot created with his good friend and my son Isaac Luxon (guitarist), characteristically titled “Mystery, Always to Yourself.”
You can listen to all three at https://bodilypress.bandcamp.com/
Pavane
For words I am too
overwhelmed not
to break your likeness
Shirt
the water married
to your body
No statue to live by
shadowlike to offend
& validate
Cool musics venting you
to want them shifting
The modern opening
of dawn to raise the stars
A memory of terror
Pavane not a dead pavane,
the sixth made to ring
with the number of living ends
Home changes
as you are released
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