Hartwick College has put out a press release, “Routine, Rejection All Part of the Process, Says Poet,” about my new book, 2013 – 2017: Sonnets.
Poetry
Book Launch for 2013–2017: Sonnets and Other Fall Readings
In support of my new book, 2013–2017: Sonnets, I will be giving three readings this fall in and around Oneonta, NY.
On Thursday, August 29, 2024 at 7:00 p.m., in collaboration with the Green Toad Bookstore, there will be a book launch for 2013–2017: Sonnets at Roots Public Social Club.
On Wednesday, September 25, 2024 at 7:00 p.m., I will be reading more poems from 2013–2017: Sonnets, along with poems from its (already completed) sequel 2018–2024: Sonnets, at Hartwick College for the 2024–25 Visiting Writers Series.
And on Thursday, November 21, 2024 at 7:30 p.m., I will be reading a range of poems, including a variety of my newest work (including from Postrock), at the Writers Salon at the Community Arts Network of Oneonta (CANO).
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.
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.
“2023.29–30,” “2024.01–02,” “2024.03,” “2024.05–06,” and “2024.08–09” in Does It Have Pockets?
I have five brand-new multisonnets, “2023.29–30,” “2024.01–02,” “2024.03,” “2024.05–06,” and “2024.08–09,” in Does It Have Pockets? I’m thrilled to have these all together in a great July issue.
The 2023–24 Visiting Writers Series at Hartwick College
This year, Hartwick College and the Department of Literature, Media, and Writing will present four readings in the 2023–24 Visiting Writers Series. Readings take place at 7:00 in the Eaton Lounge, Bresee Hall at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York.
Novelist and essayist Shena McAuliffe will read on Wednesday, October 11, 2023 from her new book of short stories, We Are a Teeming Wilderness: Stories (Press 53, 2023).
Poet and emeritus Hartwick professor Robert Bensen will read from his new book, What Lightning Spoke: New and Selected Poems (Bright Hill, 2023), on Wednesday, November 8, 20223.
Yumei Kitasei will read from her new novel, The Deep Sky (Flatiron Books, 2023), on Monday, March 4, 2024.
And poet essayist Joshua Zelesnick will read from his forthcoming poetry collection, Insert Coin (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming 2025), on Thursday, April 11, 2024.
For more information, visit the Visiting Writers Series webpage.
“2023.15–16” in Osmosis
I have a new (double) sonnet, “2023.15–16,” in Osmosis.
“2023.07–08” and “2023.10” in Pere Ube
I’m thrilled to have new sonnets from my ongoing sequence, “2023.07–08” and “2023.10,” in the new avant-garde journal Pere Ube.
Fall Semester 2023: Syllabi
Looking forward to another busy fall semester at Hartwick College with four courses I have taught before. I’m especially excited to be returning to the ENGL 190 Introduction to Textual Analysis classroom.
ENGL 190 Introduction to Textual Analysis
ENGL 213 Introduction to Creative Writing
“Something Worth Leaving in Shards: An Interview with Rachel Blau DuPlessis” in boundary 2
I am honored to say that my interview with the great poet and critic Rachel Blau DuPlessis, “Something Worth Leaving in Shards: An Interview with Rachel Blau DuPlessis,” has just been published in the most recent issue of boundary 2. (This link should provide access for three months.) I am deeply grateful to DuPlessis for corresponding with me during the summer of 2020. In lockdown with no childcare, corresponding with DuPlessis via email to conduct this interview (when I had a spare moment or two to do so) played a large part in keeping me sane during that difficult time. A huge thanks also to Racheal and Aviva, who were right there every day along with me while this interview was being conducted.
Here’s an abstract of the interview:
This interview with poet, essayist, literary critic, and collagist Rachel Blau DuPlessis was conducted via email correspondence between June 11 and August 29, 2020. Author of over a dozen volumes of poetry and half a dozen books in modernist studies, poetics, and feminist criticism, DuPlessis reflects broadly on her career in this interview. She discusses the ongoing role of feminism in her writing and thought, the forms of the fold and the fragment, the relationship between her poetry and criticism, her work in and on the long poem, and her post‐Drafts poetry, including her (at the time) most recent book, Late Work (2020). The interview concludes with a conversation about the relationship between poetry and theorizing practices and a meditation on writing during a global pandemic.
For my writing on DuPlessis: “‘Is an Archive Enough?’: Megatextual Debris in the Work of Rachel Blau DuPlessis.”
And for previous interviews: “Isn’t It a Beautiful Day? An Interview with J. Hillis Miller” and “An Interview with Jonathan Arac.”
2013–2017: Sonnets Will Be Published by LJMcD Communications in July 2024
I am absolutely thrilled to announce that 2013–2017: Sonnets, the first volume of my ongoing sonnet sequence, will be published by LJMcD Communications in July 2024. I’ll update this page with more information when I have it, but for now, here’s a description of the book:
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.
Also, thanks much to my very good friend Taylor Baldwin for the amazing cover image: The Interpreter (2010).
The Hyperarchival Parallax 