Dear Members of This Time That Was Now:

Remotely Personal Greetings is hosting its 7th & most likely final remote event of the Fall 2020 season, 2 weeks before the changing of the yearly guard signals our desire to utter proclamations of change on a personal, cultural and national level - will we dance more in 2021? Laugh more? Tell the powers to be to kiss our asses more or be content to kiss a little more ass? Maybe we'll just kiss more in general!!! Ahh lovely - the nail biting decisions on what to decree... well, don't worry about it for now, rather please tune into these 4 fresh voices as we move out of the past and into the fuuuture Thursday, December 17th at 9:00 PM EST ( 8:00 CST, 7:00 MST, 6:0PST, 5:00AST, 4:00 HST) 

Eli Briskin-  use to drive a hovercraft around the capitol before E planted tulip pomes in evening gardens so now we get to watch them bloom while the world changes in ways we don't realize are petals that will one day fall too
 

Aditi Machado  -   makes a salad, dances with the Mackay of Nat, dials MFK Dream Cake up & invites Lorine N to lick the myth while dining on the contents of a granite pail full of freshly foraged mushrooms all the while writing out a list of quietly loud lyrical huzzah 
 

John Sakkis'-  Pomes skateboard down your curved plywood off-ramp into on-coming traffic only to ride right over the roof of bewildered commuters as he zigs and zags leftward around California PD remote control flashing whip-lights
 

Don Yorty-    takes long walks in the real gone world and on premeditated hyperspace jags into the internets of logomania where his work-a-day presence is much appreciated for its easy grace throughout the most difficult of times
 

As last Season an email detailing the Zoom log-in info will be sent to guests an hour or two beforehand. Once you log-on there will be a short wait while your email is verified. The "live" event will begin at 9:00 EST with a brief meet n' greet, followed by the convocation, leading us to the 1st reader of the evening. 

And please don't forget to support UNNAMEABLE BOOKS the amazing book store who is our live host! You can find them here at 600 Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn's Burgeoning Prospect Heights 11-7 ... 2 customers at a time or go to https://unnameablebooks.square.site to purchase the latest, greatest & past books from these fantastic poets...I was just there yesterday with Jed and my oh my was it soooooo nice to be in a real bookstore looking at real books not just sugar coated confection

Feel free to forward any questions our way.

Looking forward to seeing ya'll, 

X's to your O's

Jeffrey Joe Nelson

Jed Shahar

 Dear Warriors of Change:

Remotely Personal Greetings is hosting its 6th remote event of the Fall 2020 season, a month after we the people signalled our desire for change on a national level here we be again, shrouded in the not so mysterious vicinities of our homes, so please welcome some fresh voices into your lives & tune in Thursday, December 3rd at 9:00 PM EST ( 8:00 CST, 7:00 MST, 6:0PST, 5:00AST, 4:00 HST) to hear four voices celebrating / modulating longed-for change 

Dana Burns-  Believes soon we shall see pheromones become obsolete, for when life is school we become schooled by life, obsessively conversing  about the idea of conversing, exposing ourselves to the weirdness of the world.
 

Danielle Dutton  -   Sprawls out into the world as nature consumes the prairie, reviving the landscape within her work to the Bluest of Blues, creating a living pattern of made up characters who exist outside the popular factor as Yarrow or Sweet Flag or Hyssop or Jack in the Pulpit or Wild Garlic against an infinity of textile eyes.
 

Peter Bushyeager's-  Pomes have a sensitive skin all their own like prototypes for imagined cities full of poetry bakeries, each one is a kind of tea bag full of fragrant verbs & adjectives, a stream of lively gossip that’s so out there, you just want to take it with you on your quest to the far cry outward bound.
 

Darcie Dennigan-    makes an orchard as a hedge against the invisible poisons in the water & air, a kind of Hotel Splendid where we can weather the storms wrought by our technological creed in a forever valley of lush poetic prose.
 

As last Season an email detailing the Zoom log-in info will be sent to guests an hour or two beforehand. Once you log-on there will be a short wait while your email is verified. The "live" event will begin at 9:00 EST with a brief meet n' greet, followed by the convocation, leading us to the 1st reader of the evening. 

And please don't forget to support UNNAMEABLE BOOKS the amazing book store who is our live host! You can find them here at 600 Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn's Burgeoning Prospect Heights 11-7 ... 2 customers at a time or go to https://unnameablebooks.square.site to purchase the latest, greatest & past books from these fantastic poets

Feel free to forward any questions our way.

Looking forward to seeing ya'll, 

X's to your O's

Jeffrey Joe Nelson

Jed Shahar

 

Dear Peoploids Awaiting The Transition:

Remotely Personal Greetings is hosting its 5th remote event of the Fall 2020 season, and now that we've had a chance to celebrate the making of history with our 1st Female Vice President - I sure hope  these 4 fabulous poets will help carry the torch of change further on Thursday, November 19th at 9:00 PM EST ( 8:00 CST, 7:00 MST, 6:0PST, 5:00AST, 4:00 HST) to hear four voices celebrating / inciting longed-for change 

Sara Larsen-  Dear audience fold up your folding chairs & get ready to dance the red paw-paw somnambulist prayer with Sara Larsen who loves the dance to see & be part of the cosmic movement rising & falling with all famous revolutions

 

Jeremy Kennedy-   believes there’s a wrong time for everything, that being said – count yr dressings & get on the Free Flyer you're about to be BEglitched, tho at least you aren’t on the Cry List (not tonight, not for the next hour anyway)  & just to make sure! He’s sending each & everyone of us a great big remote poetry hug!!! 
 

Joyelle McSweeney-  Takes the Night Boat to Arachne were she researches our history of transformation, discovering toxins have contributed to the resiliency of our kind, this knowledge enables her to fashion an art out of the catastrophic, an art for this new-old age, an art where red birds signify a path away from Mars & the songs of Dead Youths light the way for detecting traps so let the spell be cast
 

Rod Roland -   Believes why do it, if it doesn’t feel good. We will, we will, we will, we wheel, will feel more, will feel more, we’ll feel more, wheel feel. Well, right words know isolation just as we have endured isolation for the better or worse half of a year, tuning us like bees to a fork of pollen, struck from the hive, O the honey dew knows too, Rod's words be ripe for your ears to grow sweat tears.
 

As last Season an email detailing the Zoom log-in info will be sent to guests an hour or two beforehand. Once you log-on there will be a short wait while your email is verified. The "live" event will begin at 9:00 EST with a brief meet n' greet, followed by the convocation, leading us to the 1st reader of the evening. 

And please don't forget to support UNNAMEABLE BOOKS the amazing book store who is our live host! You can find them here at 600 Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn's Burgeoning Prospect Heights 11-7 most days (but not Tuesdays)... 2 customers at a time or go tohttps://unnameablebooks.square.site to purchase the latest, greatest & past books from these fantastic poets

Feel free to forward any questions our way.

Looking forward to seeing ya'll, 

X's to your O's

Jeffrey Joe Nelson

Jed Shahar

 Dear (inter)Nation(al) of Poetry:

Remotely Personal Greetings is hosting its 4th remote event of the Fall 2020 season, and perhaps by the time we convene over Zoom we'll have something to celebrate concerning this achingly nerve wrenching National Presidential Season- I sure hope so...and most likely these 4 fabulous poets do too, so please tune in Thursday, November 5th at 9:00 PM EST ( 8:00 CST, 7:00 MST, 6:0PST, 5:00AST, 4:00 HST) to hear four voices celebrating / inciting longed-for change 

Rae Armantrout-  Rae knows it is not easy to find truth these days, but it’s dangerous to stop trying. What we see, hear, read all must be weighed & challenged: some like Rae make the most of the challenge through their poetry.  So Conjure the change you seek as you listen to her work & look away from these myriad faces into a blank space of your own, Wobbling a bit in the darkness of Itself, knowing you are not alone.
 

Anna Gurton-Wachter -   First of all don’t double cross Anna or you may wind up with a bad-good case of Annaness, a syndrome the Russians are only now too-late realizing may be a real detriment to the future of capitalism: The Way She Feels in her Utopian New Rules, a true believer in a conduit of exceedingly brilliant orange that settles in wonderfully after a hard rain, leaving you feeling Simply Grand.

 

Carla Harryman- knows writing is an anti-authoritarian elsewhere knocking up against the abrasive here to punch a hole in NOW.  A bubble can leak but writing can patch the seams where Troll reality seeps thru & so the relationship of History to Now is volatile & ever-changing, a conversation with terror, plenitude & hope. Writing is an aspect of conversation as conversation is an aspect of writing, so by all means feel free to join the conversation via these pomes.
 

Lena Rose-Walker -   knows that letting go of your job, apartment, relationship & city can be just the thing you need to do, necessitating a larger letting go, abandoning a shit ton of delusion to collide with one another to form a lexical lasagna where interior language does not support exterior experience as yet, and yet they become garbled together in a delicious poetry cuisine saving us from Troll night, savoring our melodious differences. 

 

As last Season an email detailing the Zoom log-in info will be sent to guests an hour or two beforehand. Once you log-on there will be a short wait while your email is verified. The "live" event will begin at 9:00 EST with a brief meet n' greet, followed by the convocation, leading us to the 1st reader of the evening. 

And please don't forget to support UNNAMEABLE BOOKS the amazing book store who is our live host! You can find them here at 600 Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn's Burgeoning Prospect Heights 11-7 most days (but not Tuesdays)... 2 customers at a time or go tohttps://unnameablebooks.square.site to purchase the latest, greatest & past books from these fantastic poets

 

Dear Citizen's On Alert:

Remotely Personal Greetings is hosting its 3rd remote event of the Fall 2020 season, and we're just in time for nerve wracking buid-up to the National Presidential election next week - will it be a day of comeuppance for our Troll of State? Will we wish we'd moved to Canada years ago? Will there be massive tectonic shifting? Well, whatever does happen next Tuesday will be something for the books and poets love books like oxygen so hopefully we'll be dancing with the muse. For the time being however lets hear what these four fantastic poets have to say about their own personal states and perhaps ours as well... so, Please take a chance this  Thursday, October 29th at 9:00 PM EST ( 8:00 CST, 7:00 MST, 6:0PST, 5:00AST, 4:00 HST) with four thrilling voices for the eve before all Hallow's Eve  that will have you,hopefully looking forward to a huge change as October burns towards a new beginning by celebrating an ending

Wanda Phipps-  wakes late morning in her Brooklyn pad or perhaps she’s been traveling between worlds and is in Ukraine again or in a yurt near the shores of gorgeous Lake Baikal in the Siberian hinterland. Her desires fill a field of wanting with a thousand wake-up calls transformed into used bicycle parts to form a Calder-like menagerie pedaling into the wind, traveling through time & soft space.

 

Jackson Meazle-  knows when you pay more for an automobile than it cost Columbus to make his first voyage to America, well, that’s politics – any dang thing can be political, ya’ll just try to use a simple word like Vertebra, and as you listen to Jackson’s pomes no one will blame you for going into an inspired secret dream or writing your own Zoom Sonnet.

Lillian Bertram- knows most of would like to reverse disaster after human disaster by becoming aware of the teleportation devices inherent in your imagination and while you are at it value the intangible quality of Lillian’s pomes as you contemplate the perfect cinnamon roll hiking through the mountains of your bookshelves.

 

Tongo Eisen-Martin -  knows it’s not about weaponizing poetry like they weaponize children in schools but about being able to use a poem as an icepick to chip off the ice each of us, a chip of the old block, naw, but to chip off the layers of icy insulation that keep us from seeing feeling what’s really going on out there, so let new modes of thought energize you now.  

As last Season an email detailing the Zoom log-in info will be sent to guests an hour or two beforehand. Once you log-on there will be a short wait while your email is verified. The "live" event will begin at 9:00 EST with a brief meet n' greet, followed by the convocation, leading us to the 1st reader of the evening. 

And please don't forget to support UNNAMEABLE BOOKS the amazing book store who is our live host! You can find them here at 600 Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn's Burgeoning Prospect Heights 11-7 most days (but not Tuesdays)... 2 customers at a time or go tohttps://unnameablebooks.square.site to purchase the latest, greatest & past books from these fantastic poets

Feel free to forward any questions our way.

Looking forward to seeing ya'll, 

X's to your O's

Jeffrey Joe Nelson

Jed Shahar

P.S. I know there be some letters missing from this poster and 1 or 2 need to amended entirely & while I will send an edited version out tomorrow or THurs I needs to send this one out tonite - so please forgive, keep calm, carry on & thank you in advance for your patience & understandin'

 

Dear October's Children:

Remotely Personal Greetings is hosting its 2nd remote event of the Fall 2020 season, and we're just in time for the lush wetness and cool winds of Autumn to at least make us feel thankful for indoor restrictions. Please take a chance this  Thursday, October 15th at 9:00 PM EST ( 8:00 CST, 7:00 MST, 6:0PST, 5:00AST, 4:00 HST) with four mysterious voices from the poetry past-present-future continuum that will have you looking at your Halloween candy differently . 

Farnoosh Fahti- understands implicitly attention In its highest form is the same thing as prayer so if you want to live like a dream don’t pay such close attention to the awful details rather, look out for the beauty in smallest of aspects learning to die as we live, a revolution of reading to listen.  

Michelle Whittaker- senses that stones formerly known as lovers are just as capable of floating as they are sinking. After visiting 30 hospitals in 2 hours the eyes are likely to see stardust as no longer the elusive sightings of skywatchers & mariners but as the element we are all composed

Sheryl Holland- knows the philistines have long ago captured our means of production. Dollar bills are like blossoms in the Springtime to them but that hasn’t stopped Sheryl from writing pomes. Far from it, as rather than bemoan nostalgia for our old cultural freedoms Sheryl’s pomes forge ahead into the new

Edmund Berrigan -  hears the nameless voies crying for kindness among the irresolute clutter of cosmopolitan decay.

He swaps spit with degraded language mixing with diversified peoples amid an urban landscape In fragmentary & privileged ways but always with a sense of lust for the other dimension.

As last Season an email detailing the Zoom log-in info will be sent to guests an hour or two beforehand. Once you log-on there will be a short wait while your email is verified. The "live" event will begin at 9:00 EST with a brief meet n' greet, followed by the convocation, leading us to the 1st reader of the evening. 

Feel free to forward any questions our way.

Looking forward to seeing ya'll, 

X's to your O's

Jeffrey Joe Nelson

Jed Shahar

 

Remotely Personal GREETINGS FALL 2020 Lineup

 

The second half of the Greetings Readings Series’ 21st Season begins with the widespread nostalgia for the prior normal as the new normal continues to keep us from congregating in the wonderful backyard white rock garden of Unnameable Books, 600 Vanderbilt Ave., in Brooklyn. The upside is that now we’re able to invite poets far outside the five boroughs of New York City to read with us, expanding our community while most of us remain in the comfort of our homes. In attempting to adjust to the new parameters for social & literary interaction we’ve been graced with poets from all around the country participating in Remotely Personal Greetings for the second season in a row. All events start at 9:30pm E.S.T. with a meet n’ greet. Performances begin shortly thereafter and audience members will have a password emailed to them that evening allowing them to log on to our Zoom handle and both be seen (if they choose) & listen in on the many terrific readings scheduled. All performances are free.

 

1. October 1 …   Gabrielle Civil, Andrew Choate, & Filip Full Moon Marinovich

 

2. October 15 …  Farnoosh Fahti, Eddie Berrigan, Michelle Whittaker, & Sheryl Holland

 

3. October 29 …   Jackson Meazle, Wanda Phipps, Tongo Eisen-Martin & Lillian Bertram

 

4. November 5 …   Rae Armantrout, Carla Harryman, Anna Gurton-Wachter, & Lena Rose Impellizzeri Weiss-Walker

 

5. November 19…  Sara Larsen, Jeremy Kennedy, Joyelle McSweeny & Rod Roland

 

6. December 3…  Danielle Dutton, Peter Bushyeager, Darcie Dennigan & Dana Burns

 

7. December 17…  Aditi Machado, Don Yorty & Eli Briskin

 

Thank you all so much for your gracious support of Unnameable Greetings Readings in the past! Hope to see as many old & new faces during this upcoming season. If any other information is needed please email Jeffrey Joe Nelson:jeffreyjoenelson@gmail.com or Jed Shahar: jedshahar@gmail.com

Unnameable Books is physically open from 11-7, 6 days a week with 2 patrons allowed inside at a time. Unnameable will order the latest books from the above poets so if possible please support Unnameable Books by going online: unnameablebooks.square.site and ordering books directly from them. Thank you for your continuing support of one of Brooklyn’s best sources for new & used poetry.

We're Open!

We are now open for browsing! 2 at a time. 11-7 most days. The signs are everywhere.

Franklin Park Reading Series

https://unnameablebooks.square.site/shop/fp-july-13/55

Franklin Park Reading Series

27 mins ·

TONIGHT, 8PM EDT: The Virtual Franklin Park Reading Series hosts Blake Butler (Alice Knott), Tracy O'Neill (Quotients), Maisy Card (These Ghosts Are Family), and Ashleigh Bryant Phillips (Sleepovers) for a celebration of New Fiction! Hosted by Marae Hart. Register here: https://zoom.us/…/regi…/tJAufuqoqTIuE9eSh1Gmf4pzBOb3XvH9fopF

FRANKLIN PARK READING SERIES TONIGHT!
We hope you're doing well in these transformative times! Tonight at the Virtual Franklin Park Reading Series, we're thrilled to present acclaimed debut authors Gabriel Bump (Everywhere You Don't Belong) and poet Malcolm Tariq (Heed the Hollow), along with two favorite FP alums, Deb Olin Unferth (Barn 8) and Clare Beams (The Illness Lesson). They'll be joining our host Marae Hart, a SLICE Magazine editor and New York Writers Coalition Workshop leader, for a night of coming-of-age stories.

We’ll be broadcasting on Zoom, and you can register here.
Books for sale: https://unnameablebooks.square.site/shop/june-8th-2020/53

Franklin Park Reading Series Online

Franklin Park Reading Series Tonight at 8:00 - Featuring Tochi Onyebuchi, Teddy Wayne, Hilary Leichter and Tariq Shah Register here: https://zoom.us/…/regi…/tJcsdeCtqjMuH9y_m1ah28U2wnoXQCcsi4-v

Unnameable Books is currently closed! We love you, we miss you, and we hope to see you again soon. We promise to reopen when it becomes safe to do so.

Meanwhile, you can buy gift certificates for future use at https://unnameablebooks.square.site or by sending us money via Paypal (unnameablebooks@earthlink.net).

As thanks for your support in these difficult times we are including a 20% BONUS on all gift certificates (like, $100 will get you a $120 gift certificate)! Let us know if you are buying a gift certificate for a friend.

Stay safe, keep well, be kind, and read books.

[4/2] Remote Greetings w/ Sparrow, Silvina Lopez Medin & Sarah Sala

Dear Selfless Quarantines: 

First things first, thank you everyone for staying inside if possible - you & I & everyone else who stays put will help make this pandemic that much shorter (take a breath) - keep on breathing inside & know aside from being loved, that this is the address to click or copy into your hard-wired brains for the accessing the Remotely Personal Greetings held on ZOOM. Which means if ya want to be privy to this reading ya gots to download ZOOM if you all ready haven't, it's relatively free & easy to use - supposedly this link requires no password so here it is: https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/j/748505506

Whew - now that the vital linking info has been dispersed into the ether - so to speak - let me begin for reals:

Dear Selfless Quaranties:

How we've looked forward to seeing ya'll again; its as if the muse has been moved indoors to a private echo chamber, and so here we are, isolated within our own realms, each to each, well, let's try to bridge the pandemic ice bridge for an hour or so again this Thursday, April 2nd, 2020 at 10 Pm Eastern Time (that's 7 Pmish for all you Left Coasters).

We'll start off with a brief meet n' greet at 10 Pm as people click in from around their living room consciousness, maybe we'll even have some music to ease us into the reading with Other Arc Ensemble playing through the invisible nets to one another. This brief check-in will be followed at 10:15ish by  3 swimmingly buoyant poets:

Sarah Sala - has fished long enough in the Devil's Lake to know a thing or two about the silty bottom of dark lake and how, through a rapidly moving Ghost Assembly Line the survivors of our memory are hooked on the Hydrogen of our desire cells. Her Office Hours are ubiquitous: be here with here & everywhere.

Silvina Lopez Medin - Has taken the Argentinian highway not by way of Ocampo but Medin where the Oxen grow restless come the evening and deer, wild as fauns are, lick the salt of the disappeared tears till their tongues grow dry like mangroves removed from their swamps so that only an energetic lashing can get them moving, get the sound of propellers churning like a lone swimmer counting their strokes beneath the Brooklyn bridge where you too, in her pomes, can hear it rain.

Sparrow - from humble beginning of sharing bricks with Lou Al Cinder to running for President of these very narrow United States, Sparrow now would like to take each & everyone of you out on a Dream Date. C'mon don't be shy - he knows a great place for Broccoli ala Fantastique; afterwards you will dance as he plays the flutophone and composes songs he will later use to shake the trees awake: & so his pomes do: awake, awakening, woke!  

Yes, listen for the beat of the drum as these 3 poets prepare to fill your senses with sounds beyond your personal remote hide-away.

So tune in, if you can, tonight at 10 pm EST, 9Pm Central, 8pm Mountain 7pm PST & 9 Am in Yogyakarta &  we'll hopefully connect to the muse & then some...

X's to your O's

from at least 6 feet afar,

Jeffrey Joe 

[March 26] Marinovich // Poirier // Mathews // OAE

ONLINE AND IN YOUR MIND

Unnameable Books is closed at the moment but the poetry continues!

Please join us for the Season Opener of GREETINGS

with Filip Marinovich, Julien Poirier, Alyssa Mathews & music by Other Arc Ensemble

in a normal year we would be discussing whether this could better happen in a warming backyard or a cosy basement, but this year the answer is wherever you find yourself safely separated and with internet access.

please check back here for url info and the confirmed start time as Julien will be joining us from the west coast.

[March 11] Ostups // Turovskaya // Gulian

Wednesday, March 11
7:30pm
A reading with poets from Latvia, Ukraine, and Armenia. 

Latvian poet Artis Ostups in a rare US appearance, and celebrating Genya Turovskaya's new book from Black Square. Wine and such will be provided.

Anahit Gulian, born in Armenia in 1989, is a writer and artist living in the orange shadows of New York City. She is one half of Imp Books and sings in the band Nandas. Her fiction has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Dizzy Magazine, and The Recluse; her drawings have appeared in NUTS! Magazine, Never Sit, the internet, and the covers of chapbooks and records.

Artis Ostups is the author of the poetry collections Comrade Snow (Biedrs Sniegs), Photography and Scissors (Fotografija un škeres), and Gestures (Žesti). In addition to poetry, he writes literary criticism. He is a researcher at the Institute of Literature, Folklore, and Art and the founder and editor-in-chief of the online magazine Punctum. His work has been translated into English, German, French, Russian, Lithuanian, Slovenian, and Croatian.

Genya Turovskaya is a poet, translator, and psychotherapist. She is the author of The Breathing Body Of This Thought (Black Square Editions), as well as the chapbooks Calendar (UDP), The Tides (Octopus Books), New Year’s Day (Octopus Books), and Dear Jenny (Supermachine). Her poetry and translations of contemporary Russian poets have appeared in A Public Space, Asymptote, Chicago Review, Conjunctions, Fence, jubilat, Octopus, PEN Poetry, Sangam Poetry, Seedings, The Elephants, and other publications. She is the translator of Aleksandr Skidan’s Red Shifting (UDP), co-translator of Elena Fanailova's Russian Version (UDP), and co-translator of Arkadii Dragomoshchenko’s Endarkenment: Selected Poems (Wesleyan). She has received a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, a Montana Artist Refuge Fellowship and a Witter Bynner Translation Residency at Santa Fe Art Institute.

[March 6] Lance Olsen: My Red Heaven

Friday, March 6th
7PM


Please join us as Lance Olsen reads from his latest novel, MY RED HEAVEN (Dzanc Books, 2020)! The evening will also feature Lance in conversation with author Peter Wortsman.

Set on a single day in Golden Twenties Berlin, MY RED HEAVEN imagines a host of various historical or imagined figures moving through the city, like Robert Musil, Otto Dix, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Oskar Kokoschka, Vladimir Nabokov, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Käthe Kollwitz, Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg, and Rosa Luxemburg. And several ghosts!

Drawing inspiration from Otto Freundlich’s painting by the same name, Lance Olsen’s My Red Heaven explores a complex moment in history: the rise of deadly populism at a time when everything seemed possible and the future unimaginable.

Lance Olsen is author of thirteen novels, one hypermedia text, five nonfiction books, five short-story collections, a poetry chapbook, and two anti-textbooks about experimental writing, as well as editor of two collections of essays about innovative contemporary fiction. Recipient of numerous awards, he teaches experimental narrative theory and practice at the University of Utah.

Peter Wortsman is the author of A Modern Way to Die, Footprints in Wet Cement, The Tattooed Man Tells All, Burning Words, Ghost Dance in Berlin: A Rhapsody in Gray, Cold Earth Wanderer, and Stimme und Atem / Out of Breath.

This event is free and open to the public.

[Feb 15] Boog City 13.5

In just XX days, on Sat., Feb. 15 and Sun. Feb. 16, we'll be celebrating our annual Presidents Day weekend event, Welcome to Boog City 13.5 Arts Festival: Poetry, Music, Theater, Dance, and Film.

It will feature 29 poets; 7 musical acts; 3 poets theater plays; 1 collaborative poetry, dance, and music performance; 1 Poetry Talk Talk; and 1 short film over the two days.

Saturday will be at Unnameable Books in Brooklyn, Sunday cross the river to the Bowery Poetry Club

And here's who put together Welcome to Boog City 13.5: David Kirschenbaum is the festival director and helped book the poets with Ron Kolm. Todd Carlstrom booked the music.

Among the festival highlights are:

—Poetry Talk Talk, featuring Joanna Fuhrman and Jean-Paul Pecqueur reading and in conversation
—our 13th Poets' Theater event
—the debut of Matt Kohn's film Descrapulation
—for its 25th anniversary, a live performance of Elastica’s eponymous debut album
—The Cut-Outs (Matisse): An afternoon of collaborative poetry (Bob Holman), dance (Molissa Fenley), and music (Keith Patchel and Alan Grubner)


The full schedule for the event, followed by performer bios and websites, is available on the FB event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/2469529896639347/

[Feb 11] Sinton/Housle/Ilgenfritz 3-o, Robbie Lee solo

8pm
Robbie Lee - solo woodwinds

8:40
Josh Sinton - baritone saxophone
James Ilgenfritz - bass
Rachel Housle - drums

9:30
*everyone*

[Feb 6] Indoor Pool

Various group improvisations and noises by: Sean Ali (bass) Michael Foster (sax) Cecilia Lopez (synth) Joe Moffett (trumpet) Jean Carla Rodea (voice)

[Feb 7] Julia Bloch & Jennifer Firestone

Join us Friday, February 7 at 7pm for a reading from poets Julia Bloch and Jennifer Firestone.

Julia Bloch is a poet, scholar, and author of three books of poetry, Letters to Kelly Clarkson, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, Valley Fever, and The Sacramento of Desire, each from Sidebrow Books. Her scholarly essays and reviews have appeared in Journal of Modern Literature, Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature, The Volta, and elsewhere, and she is working on a critical monograph about lyric theory and the North American long poem. Julia received a BA in political philosophy at Carleton College, an MFA in creative writing at Mills College, and a PhD in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Her awards and honors include the San Francisco Foundation’s Joseph Henry Jackson Literary Award and a Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. She has previously taught at Bard College and Mills College and is currently Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2017, she was awarded a Pew Fellowship by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage. She is on Twitter @julivox.

Jennifer Firestone's books include TEN (BlazeVOX, 2018), Gates & Fields (Belladonna*, 2017), Swimming Pool (DoubleCross, 2016), Flashes (Shearsman, 2013), Holiday (Shearsman, 2008), Waves (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2007), from Flashes and snapshot (2006 and 2004, Sona Books), and Fanimaly (Dusie Kollektiv, 2013). She coedited Letters To Poets: Conversations about Poetics, Politics and Community (Saturnalia, 2008). Firestone's work has been anthologized in Kindergarde: Avant-Garde Poems, Plays, Songs, & Stories for Children (Black Radish Books, 2013) and in Building is a Process / Light is an Element: Essays and Excursions for Myung Mi Kim (P-Queue/ Queue Books, 2008). She won the 2014 Marsh Hawk Press’ Robert Creeley Memorial Prize, and she is an assistant professor at the New School’s Eugene Lang College.

[Feb 8] William T. Vollmann Changed My Life

 Saturday, February 8, 2020 at 6 PM – 8 PM

"William T. Vollmann Changed My Life" – a Book Launch Party / Reading Event for Conversations with William T. Vollmann (University Press of Mississippi, 2020) – will be a gathering of Vollmann scholars, critics, readers - as well as contributors to the book. The evening will be a chance for Vollmann readers and fans to discuss what his writing means to them and how it has affected their lives, and to meet each other, connect, and exchange ideas about all things Vollmann.

Participants include:
Jordan Rothacker, Jimmy Cline, RV Branham, Michael Coffey, Ted Hamilton, Donna Seaman, Liz Fried, Marco Malvestio, Steven Ross, Bryan Santin, Madison Smartt Bell, Matthew Thompson, Miles Liebtag.

https://www.upress.state.ms.us/Books/C/Conversations-with-William-T.-Vollmann

About the book:

Across fiction, journalism, ethnography, and history, William T. Vollmann’s oeuvre—which includes a “prostitution trilogy,” a septology (Seven Dreams) about encounters between first North Americans and European colonists, and a more-than-three-thousand-page philosophical treatise on violence—is as ambitious as it is dazzling. Conversations with William T. Vollmann collects twenty-nine interviews, from early press coverage in Britain where his career first took flight, to in-depth visits to his writing and art studio in Sacramento, California.

Throughout these conversations, Vollmann (b. 1959) speaks with candor and wit on such subjects as grief and guilt in his work, his love of guns and his experience of war, the responsibilities of the artist as witness, the benefits of looking out into the world beyond the confines of one’s horizon, the limitations of what literature can achieve, and how we can speak to the future. Bringing to the fore several expanded, unpublished, and hard-to-find interviews, this volume offers a valuable set of perspectives on a uniquely rewarding and sometimes overwhelming writer. On the road promoting his books or in a domestic setting, Vollmann comes across as reflective and humane, humble in his craft despite deep dedication to his uncompromising vision, and ever armed with a spirit of mischief and capacity to shock and unsettle the reader.

[Jan 18, Saturday] La Esquina Open Mic

Join us for the the premiere of a new series presented to you by The Titere Poets: La Esquina Open Mic!

Come through! Bring your poetry! Bring your stories! Bring your songs!

When you join us for La Esquina there will be a few requirements:
- All ages
- Be respectful to all those in attendance
- Open Mic sign-up sheet opens at 7p sharp & closes by 7:30p. If you come later than 7:30 you will be put on a waitlist.
- Each participant will be given 3 minute to perform a single piece to give everyone a chance to read!
- Please take the opportunity to explore the amazing Unnameable Books hosting this event!

Featured Readers:

Thomas Fucaloro The winner of a performance grant from the Staten Island Council of the Arts and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Thomas Fucaloro has been on six national slam teams. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the New School and is a co-founding editor of Great Weather for Media and NYSAI press. He is an adjunct professor at Wagner College and BMCC where he teaches courses, "Poetry and Protest", "The Art of The Found Poem" and "Poetry and Comic books. His latest chapbook, “There is Always Tomorrow” was released in 2017 by Mad Gleam Press.

Sarah Serrano-Esquilin is a Puerto Rican poet, visual artist, art therapist-in-training, and special educator. Her work has been featured in galleries, print, and digital platforms. Sarah is a Vona and Highlights magazine alumna. She is a professional haikuist, and has performed and written for celebrities, NYFW, DKNY, Forbes, and more. Please check her out via her website: https://cantfightthefro.wixsite.com/cantfightthefro.


Free to the Public

This event will be held at Unnameable Books, which is located in Prospect Heights at 600 Vanderbilt Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238.