I am looking forward to my first fall semester at Hartwick College. I’ll be teaching three classes: Introduction to Creative Writing (ENGL 213); Reading Modern Poetry (ENGL 250); and Creative Writing: Poetry (ENGL 312). This semester is especially exciting because I will be returning to the creative writing classroom, and, I mean, look at all this poetry:
I’ll post syllabi when they’re complete. No class blogs this semester, but probably soon, especially if I do something new this spring.
I recently read at the Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series, and you can listen to (and download) it here. I read “We’re Just Like Yesterday’s Headlines,” “Throw Out Your Life,” and “The Shape of Things I,” all from my forthcoming collection, The Shape of Things, due out soon from Salò Press.
You can also hear the other poets here: Nikki Allen, Jennifer Jackson Berry, Jason Irwin, Sharon Fagan McDermott, Kayla Sargeson. It was a really nice evening filled with wonderful verse. Thanks all.
Poets who read at Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series, June 13, 2017. Back row, left-to-right: Jimmy Cvetic, Bradley J. Fest, Sharon Fagan McDermott, and Joan Bauer; front row, left-to-right: Nikki Allen, Jennifer Jackson Berry, Kayla Sargeson, and Jason Irwin.
It’s been a long year, long for many reasons, but here’s a backlog of some links. (Some very good news is imminent. . . .)
Nuclear and Environmental
New York Times Editorial Board, “The Finger on the Nuclear Button.”
Rebecca Savranksy, “US May Launch Strike if North Korea Moves to Test Nuclear Weapon.”
Kaveh Waddell, “What Happens if a Nuclear Bomb Goes Off in Manhattan.”
Radiolab, “Nukes.”
Laurel Wamsley, “Digitization Unearths New Data From Cold War-Era Nuclear Test Films.”
Michael Biesecker and John Flesher, “President Trump Institutes Media Blackout at EPA.”
Brian Kahn, “The EPA Has Started to Remove Obama-Era Information.”
Zoë Schlanger, “Hackers Downloaded US Government Climate Data and Stored It on European Servers as Trump Was Being Inaugurated.”
Cass R. Sunstein, “Making Sense of Trump’s Order on Climate Change.”
Laurie Penny, “The Slow Confiscation of Everything.”
Four more sonnets from my ongoing sequence were just published in vol. 44, no. 3, of Grain: The Journal of Eclectic Writing. The issue is titled “Relativity of Zen,” is edited by Adam Pottle, and can be purchased here.
I will be giving two poetry readings in Pittsburgh over the next couple months.
On May 18, 2017 I will be reading at Piccolo Forno at 7:00 pm to accompany the release of issue 7 of the After Happy Hour Review. Also reading will be Bob Hartley, Daniel Parme, Celine Roberts, and Daniel M. Shapiro.
On June 13, 2017 I will be reading at the Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series. Also reading will be Nikki Allen, Jennifer Jackson Berry, Jason Irwin, Sharon Fagan McDermott, and Kayla Sargeson.
“Toward a Theory of the Megatext: Speculative Criticism and Richard Grossman’s ‘Breeze Avenue Working Paper,'” the first essay from a new project on what I have been calling megatexts, will appear in Scale in Literature and Culture, edited by Michael Tavel Clarke and David Wittenberg. The collection of essays will be published by Palgrave Macmillan and will hopefully come out later this year. More information to come.
I will be reading at The Bonfire Reading Series with Dan Thomas-Glass on March 4, 2017 in Pittsburgh, PA. For more on the series, check out Guillermo Parra’s article and interview with the Bonfire Collective on The Best American Poetry blog. Landmark Tongues with Alan Lewandowski will also be performing.
I am happy to announce that my second volume of poetry, The Shape of Things, will be published this summer by Salò Press. More details to come.
“2015.17,” a poem from my ongoing sonnet sequence, just appeared in volume 17 of The Offbeat.
Nuclear and Environment
Stephen Hawking, “This Is the Most Dangerous Time for Our Planet.”
Andrew Bast, “Unpredictable,” review of Nuclear Politics: The Strategic Causes of Nuclear Proliferation, by By Nuno P. Monteiro and Alexandre Debs.
Joe Romm, “Priebus Confirms That Climate Denial Will Be the Official Policy of Trump’s Administration.”
Natasha Geiling, “Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Deletes Accurate Climate Science from Agency Webpage.”
Madeline Conway, “Trump Threatens to Upend US Nuclear Weapons Policy.”
Sam Stein, “Trump Releases Letter From Putin Amid Talk Of Nuclear Arms Race.”
Robinson Meyer, “Human Extinction Isn’t That Unlikely.”
The Hyperarchival Parallax 