2013–2017: Sonnets

Now available! 2013–2017: Sonnets, my third book of poetry and the first volume of my American Sonnet sequence, has been published by LJMcD Communications. It can be ordered through Amazon

Fest, Bradley J--Cover for 2013-2017--cover

2013–2017: Sonnets is the first volume in Bradley J. Fest’s ongoing sequence of American sonnets, a project concerned with how the distributed networks of the twenty-first century construct and filter time. Continuing the program of poetic assemblage explored in his first two books, these poems were composed consecutively as emergent temporal snapshots documenting certain experiences of what it was like to live precariously in the overdeveloped world between 2013 and 2017. Over the past decade, this ongoing experimental sonnet sequence has become: a complex encounter with time and its twenty-first-century rhythms; a document of artistic maturation; a personal archive of occasions, moments, days; a continually refreshed confrontation with the global computational hyperarchive; a discography of popular music; an extended reflection on contemporary literature, art, and culture; an increasingly multiplex meditation on the sonnet; an historical record of the troubling national situation in the United States; and a work of mourning for a world disappearing into climate emergency. The second volume, currently in progress, begins in 2018.

Eternal thanks to Lachlan J. McDougall for bringing 2013–2017 into the world and to Taylor Baldwin for the cover image.

Fest, Bradley J--Cover for 2013-2017--spread

Links in the Time of Coronavirus, Vol. 6: August 16–September 15, 2020

Black Lives Matter

Inae Oh, “Wisconsin Police Shot Jacob Blake in ‘Broad Daylight.'”

Peter Beaumont, “Kenosha: Teen Charged with Murder after Two Black Lives Matter Protesters Killed.”

Adam Serwer, “The New Reconstruction.”

Jasmyn Wimbish and Jack Maloney, “NBA Protest, Live Updates: Schedule Announced for Resumption of Playoffs on Saturday, Sunday.”

Shams Charania, “Sources: LeBron James Sought Out Barack Obama for Advice to Players.”

Melissa Gira Grant, “Far-Right Militias Are Learning Impunity From the Cops.”

Hallie Golden, Mike Baker, and Adam Goldman, “Suspect in Fatal Portland Shooting Is Killed by Officers During Arrest.”

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End of the Semester Links, Fall 2018

Nuclear and Environmental

Fourth National Climate Assessment.

Deconstructed, “Will the US Ever Give Up Its Nukes?”

“Trump Says US Will Withdraw from Nuclear Deal with Russia.”

Wilfred Wan, “The Nuclear Threat Is Rising: Europe Cannot Just Stand and Watch.”

Will Steffen, et al, “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene.”

Kate Aronoff, “‘Hothouse Earth’ Co-Author: The Problem Is Neoliberal Economics” and “With a Green New Deal, Here’s What the World Could Look Like for the Next Generation.”

Kim Stanley Robinson, “To Slow Down Climate Change, We Need to Take On Capitalism.”

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Summer 2017 Links

Nuclear and Environmental

Nearing midnight: “Military solutions are now fully in place,locked and loaded,should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!”

Mehdi Hasan, “The Madman with Nuclear Weapons Is Donald Trump, Not Kim Jong-un.”

David Wallace-Wells, “The Uninhabitable Earth.”

NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein, and “Global Hiroshima: Notes from a Bullet Train.”

Elizabeth Kolbert, “Au Revoir: Trump Exits the Paris Climate Agreement.”

Fiona Harvey, “World Has Three Years Left to Stop Dangerous Climate Change, Warn Experts.”

Damian Carrington, “Arctic Stronghold of World’s Seeds Floods after Permafrost Melts.”

Benjamin Powers, “An Abandoned US Nuclear Base in Greenland Could Start Leaking Toxic Waste Because of Global Warming.”

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Reading at Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series on June 13, 2017

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.

End of the Semester Links, Spring 2017

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.”

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Upcoming Readings on May 18 and June 13

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.