Christopher holding If We Had a Lemon in the snow

When Life Gives You Lemons…


Congratulations to past contributor Christopher Citro on his recent poetry collection If We Had a Lemon We’d Throw It and Call That the Sun, which was published by Elixir Press in April. The collection is Christopher’s second poetry book.

The title poem was originally published in Gulf Coast Literary Journal in 2018:

If We Had a Lemon We'd Throw It and Call That the Sun

I’d like to invite you to the party but I don’t
know your name, have your address, or
know you well enough to really want you
around my cat. I feel a kinship with all people
and then I share a beach with them and want
to yell use your inside voice. We’re outside
but that doesn’t mean we’ll not dissolve
if raised to the light. Some days the sea wants
to chew us into shattered two-by-fours.
Some days she’s a kitten pasting soft hairs
around our ankles. I know—I know this for
a fact—there are moist pasta salads being
prepared and eaten all around me—in those
bushes for instance—and I’m not getting any.
I tried to start my life out right and still
lost track of where I was going. Example,
I picked my college because my girlfriend
went there. She slept with my best friend.
I went there anyway. That determined
the course of the rest of my life. I wiped
the table down with bleach before sitting
and now my forearm smells. It’s going
to be okay though. I’m going to need this
bleach-arm for some purpose. To identify
some wanderers in the sky it’s helpful to
determine the color. At a distance everything
for me goes gray. A mountain range in
a black-and-white film. We’ve been walking,
my horse and I, for days. For water we
think about rivers and lick our own ideas.

Check out this video to hear Christopher read two poems in the collection, “It’s Something People in Love Do” and “Our Beautiful Life When It’s Filled With Shrieks.”

Christopher Citro reads two poems from If We Had a Lemon We’d Throw It and Call That the Sun by Christopher Citro, August 3, 2020

The collection is the winner of the 2019 Antivenom Poetry Award and is available from Small Press Distribution. Find more from Christopher on his website, Instagram, and Twitter.

#ArtLitPhx: Poetry Reading with Javier Zamora

#ArtLitPhx: Poetry Reading with Javier Zamora

Join the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing for a poetry reading with Javier Zamora on Saturday, September 14, 2019 from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. at Palabras Bilingual Bookstore (1738 E McDowell Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85006), courtesy of the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series. RSVPs are encouraged, but not required. This event is free and open to the public.

Zamora will be presenting his own bilingual, debut collection, Unaccompanied. It is poetry that delves into race, borderland politics, and immigration on a journey throughout El Salvador and Mexico, rife with civil war. Zamora himself was born in El Salvador and moved to the United States when he was only nine–over 4,000 miles–to reunite with his parents. In a 2014 interview for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Art Works Blog, Zamora stated, “I think in the United States we forget that writing and carrying that banner of ‘being a poet’ is tied into a long history of people that have literally risked [their lives] and died to write those words”. 

 He is also the author of the chapbook Nueve Anos Inmigrantes/Nine Immigrant Years, which won the 2011 Organic Weapon Arts Contest, as well as a winner of 2017 Narrative Prize.

The Piper Writers Studio will also be presenting a class with Javier Zamora, Engagement in Poetry/Engaged poetry from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Piper Writers House (450 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85287). To learn about Javier Zamora’s class, you can find more information about it on the website.

#ArtLiPhx: First Friday Poetry

Peter Twal, winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize, reads from his debut collection, Our Earliest Tattoos.

These long-lined sonnets, inspired by the LCD Soundsystem song “All My Friends,” celebrate the surreal, embracing the nature of memory as fragmented and inherently bizarre.

Open reading follows.

ABOUT THE POET 
PETER TWAL is a Jordanian-American poet, an electrical engineer, and the author of Our Earliest Tattoos, winner of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize (University of Arkansas Press). He earned his MFA from the University of Notre Dame, where he was awarded the Samuel and Mary Anne Hazo Poetry Prize. Since then, his work has appeared in The Believer, Best New Poets, Kenyon Review Online, West Branch Wired, Ninth Letter Online, Berkeley Poetry Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Pleiades, Bat City Review, and elsewhere. Drawing from his professional career, Peter’s poetry seeks a common ground where the seemingly disconnected worlds of writing and engineering learn from each other’s malleability and strength. Our Earliest Tattoos, his debut collection, furthers that pursuit through the use of poetic form, imagistic layering, and more.

EVENT INFORMATION

Location: Changing Hands Bookstore, 6428 S. McClintock Dr., Tempe

Date: Friday, August 2

Time: 7 p.m.

For more information about the event, click here.

#ArtLitPhx: Lehua Taitano and Bojan Louis Poetry Reading

The University of Arizona Poetry Center is proud to present our summer resident Lehua Taitano and Bojan Louis (new poetry faculty in the Creative Writing program and in American Indian Studies), who will read from their work. After the reading, there will be a short Q&A and a book signing.

Lehua M. Taitano is a queer CHamoru writer and interdisciplinary artist from Yigo, Guåhan (Guam) and co-founder of Art 25. She is the author of two volumes of poetry—Inside Me an Island (WordTech Editions) and A Bell Made of Stones (TinFish Press). Her chapbook, appalachiapacific, won the 2010 Merriam-Frontier Award for short fiction. She has two recent chapbooks of poetry and visual art: Sonoma(Dropleaf Press) and Capacity (a Hawai’i Review e-chap). Her poetry, essays, and Pushcart Prize-nominated fiction have appeared in FenceKartika ReviewRed Ink International JournalPoetry Magazine, and numerous others. She has served as an APAture Featured Literary Artist via Kearny Street Workshop, a Kuwentuhan poet via The Poetry Center at SFSU, and as a Culture Lab visual artist and digital exhibit advisor for the Smithsonian Institute’s Asian Pacific American Center. Taitano’s work investigates modern indigeneity, decolonization, and cultural identity in the context of diaspora.

Bojan Louis (Diné) is the author of the poetry collection Currents (BkMk Press 2017), which received a 2018 American Book Award, and the nonfiction chapbook Troubleshooting Silence in Arizona (The Guillotine Series 2012). His fiction has appeared in EcotoneNuméro Cinq MagazineYellow Medicine Review, and Alaska Quarterly Review; nonfiction in MudCity Journal and AS/US. Former poetry editor at RED INK and former poetry editor and co-founder of Waxwing, Louis has been a resident at The MacDowell Colony and is the inaugural Virginia G. Piper Fellow-in-Residence at Arizona State University. He will be joining the MFA and AIS faculty at the University of Arizona in the fall 2019.

EVENT INFORMATION:

Date: Thursday, July 25

Time: 7 p.m.

Location: University of Arizona Poetry Center, 1508 E. Helen St., Tucson

Cost: Free

For more information, click here.

Contributor Update, Brenda Hillman: Broadside Reading Series

Join us in congratulating SR poet contributor Brenda Hillman. Now the author of ten poetry collections published by Wesleyan University Press, she was chosen as a featured author in the Broadside Reading Series, which took place on May 30 at the New York Center For Book Arts Inc.

Her most recent collection, Extra Hidden Life, among the Days, was published last year and contains poetry of grief and sustenance.

To read more about Brenda and her publications, click here. You can find her poem, “To a Desert Poet,” from Issue 3 here.

Congratulations on this exciting news, Brenda!

Contributor Update, F. Daniel Rzicznek: Settlers

Today we are happy to share the news of past contributor F. Daniel Rzicznek! Daniel has just announced his third poetry collection titled “Settlers.” The collection is available now and Paul will be reading and signing copies at the Portland AWP Conference. Stop by and say hello to Paul and S[r] staff at our table! The collection is centered around the landscape of the American Midwest, and the conflict of ease and resistance in the process of settling.

 

More information about the collection can be found here from Parlor Press, his poem Wiggle Room can be found published in our 22nd Issue here.

 

Congratulations Daniel!

 

#ArtLitPhx: Phoenix Poetry Slam | The Lost Leaf

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Date: December 27, 2018

Time: 7:00pm-9:00pm

Event Description:

Join us every 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month for the longest running poetry slam in Phoenix, AZ!

15 poets compete in three rounds of performance poetry judged by 5 randomly selected members of the audience.

Poets interested in competing must send an email to gnome.chomsky@lawngnomepublishing.com with “POETRY SLAM’ in the subject line. We send you a confirmation email with the rules and expectations to help you compete.

Today’s Phoenix Poetry Slam from Lawn Gnome Publishing is the result of years of seeking talented new voices and promoting strong literary events.

Lawn Gnome Publishing brought the 2014 Individual World Poetry Slam to Phoenix, AZ. It was the first time a Poetry Slam Inc event has been held in Arizona since the performance art was established in the 90’s. Our mission is to provide a space for local writers/artists/performers/etc. to explore and perfect their own craft. Our commitment is community. We welcome persons of any and all genders, sexualities, ethnicities, abilities, ages, etc. As writers and literary critics, we value freedom of speech and thus do not limit, moderate or otherwise censor any content, and so there is a blanket trigger warning for all events. However, we strive to create a constructive atmosphere of equality, sensitivity, and progress, one that encourages discussion and actively opposes marginalization of any persons or group. Our goal isn’t tolerance of diversity, but its empowerment and alliance.

Our venue is The Lost Leaf, a beer and wine bar located at 914 N 5th St in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. The folks behind The Lost Leaf are pretty sincere about their beer. The bohemian-style drinkery/gallery, housed in a vintage 1930s-era domicile, offers a selection of more than 100 different kinds of ales, lagers, stouts, and other intoxicating brews available by the bottle. If that isn’t enough to wet your whistle, the Lost Leaf also serves a host of wines, meads, and even sake, to boot. If you can tear yourself away from the bar, check out the pulchritudinous paintings and other outstanding works of art hanging on the walls, or enjoy nightly performances by a variety of musicians and bands.

#ArtLitPhx: Poetry Reading: Carl Phillips

#artlitphxDate: October 25, 2018

Time: 7:00pm

Location: University of Arizona Poetry Center, 1508 E Helen St, Tucson, AZ 85719

Event Description:

We are proud to present Carl Phillips, who will read from his work. After the reading, there will be a short Q&A and a book signing.

Carl Phillips is the author of fourteen books of poetry, most recently Wild Is the Wind (FSG, 2018), and Reconnaissance (FSG, 2015), winner of the PEN USA Award and the Lambda Literary Award.  He is also the author of two books of prose: The Art of Daring: Risk, Restlessness, Imagination (Graywolf, 2014) and Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Life and Art of Poetry (Graywolf, 2004), and he is the translator of Sophocles’ Philoctetes (Oxford, 2004).  A four-time finalist for the National Book Award, his honors include the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry, the Kingsley Tufts Award, the Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Library of Congress, and the Academy of American Poets. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

#ArtLitPhx: Poetry Reading: Sara Sams and Charles Simic

#artlitphxOctober 3, 7pm

This is a free event open to the public.
Reserve your spot at tickets.phxart.org

 

About the poets:

Sara Sams is a poet, essayist, and translator from Oak Ridge, Tennessee. She currently works as an instructor for Arizona State University’s College of Interdisciplinary Humanities & Communications, where she provides faculty support for the Superstition Review. She is a graduate of Davidson College (B.A.) and Arizona State University (M.F.A.), and has received teaching fellowships from the Ministry of Education of Spain and the National University of Singapore. – Saraesams.com

Charles Simic is perhaps our most disquieting muse. There are few poets writing in America today who share his lavish appetite for the bizarre, his inexhaustible repertoire of indelible characters and gestures. -The Harvard Review on Charles Simic. Excerpt taken from Poets.org.

 

Presented with the University of Arizona Poetry Center. Sponsored by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing, the Creative Writing Program at Arizona State University, the Literary and Prologue Society of the Southwest, Superstition Review, and the Angela and Leonard Singer Endowment for Performing Arts.

Right image credit: Beowulf Sheehan, from Poets.org

#ArtLitPhx: Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing: Poetry Reading with Carolina Ebeid

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Event Description:

The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing and Changing Hands proudly present a poetry reading with Carolina Ebeid on First Friday, September 7, 2018 at Changing Hands Phoenix (300 W Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85013) at 7 p.m. This event is open to the public and free.

To learn more and RSVP, visit https://piper.asu.edu/events/carolina-ebeid/poetry-reading

Between Inventory and Invention with Carolina Ebeid takes place the following day on Saturday, September 8, 2018 at the Piper Writers House (450 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281). To learn more about Carolina’s class, visit https://piper.asu.edu/classes/carolina-ebeid/list-poem-workshop.

About the Book
You Ask Me to Talk About the Interior emerges out of the ontological shock and double-bind of there being a world (rather than nothing at all), and inhabiting this world that “depends on violence.” Still, Carolina Ebeid writes, “I have wanted / to make you something // beautiful.” Drawing on influences such as Roland Barthes’s notion of the punctum (the photographic detail that pierces the viewer) to the repertoire of circles and twirls––the veronicas––bullfighters make with the red cape to attract the bull, Ebeid explores a poetics that is at once intricate and intimate. The poems in this book move by way of metaphors and poetic turns that reveal and wound; they cover territories ranging from personal confession and diagnosis to political catastrophes such as war and exile. Witnessing again to the lyric as art of ethical reckoning, each poem in You Ask Me to Talk About the Interior is an ardent fathoming of our most interior selves, each poem in Ebeid’s long-awaited first collection is a momentary “allegory for the soul.”

About the Author
Carolina Ebeid’s work appears widely in journals such as The Kenyon Review, Crazyhorse, jubilat, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Poetry, and others. She holds an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers, and has won awards and fellowships from the Stadler Center for Poetry, CantoMundo, The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Academy of American Poets. She was awarded an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry for 2015.

She is a PhD candidate in the University of Denver’s creative writing program, where she serves as Associate Editor of the Denver Quarterly. Her first book, You Ask Me To Talk About The Interior, was published by Noemi Press in 2016 as part of their Akrilica series. Poets & Writers Magazine selected You Ask Me To Talk About The Interior as one of the ten best debut collections in 2016. She is currently at work on a book project entitled Hide.

Carolina grew up in West New York, NJ, and now lives in Denver. Her fellow travelers include the poet Jeffrey Pethybridge and their son Patrick; together they edit Visible Binary.