Readings.

I will be giving a reading with John Tipton and Leila Wilson on Tuesday, December 6, 2022 for the Cactus Flower Reading Series at 3454 N. Bell Ave., in Roscoe Village. I’ll be reading from The Hidden Eyes of Things for the first time in Chicago since the book was published this past summer. John will be reading from his amazing new book Believers. And Leila will be reading from new work. Exciting!

Speaking of Hidden Eyes, I read the Neptune section of the poem at the Poetry and Spirituality symposium at Xavier University last month, hosted by the great Norman Finkelstein.

Here is a link to the video from the reading.

Last month, I joined Al Filreis, Laynie Brown, and Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué to discuss H.D.’s legendary poem “Heat,” along with Robert Duncan’s magisterial reading of the poem from the opening of The H.D. Book. This is part of the free ModPo (“Modern & Contemporary American Poetry”) course that runs out of Kelly Writers House and Penn.

Speaking some more of Hidden Eyes, here is a link to a flatteringly perceptive review of the book by the (once again) great Norman Finkelstein. You may have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to get to the review.

And here is a similarly perceptive and impressively argued interpretation of The Sampo by Sean Reynolds. This essay, “Translation for the End Times: Peter O’Leary’s The Sampo,” appears in an anthology called Postmodern Poetry and Queer Medievalisms, edited by David Hadbawnik.

Translation for the End Times: Peter O’Leary’s The Sampo

Finally, “I’m Sorry for Everything.”

Recent and upcoming readings, pandemic edition.

In this time of pandemic, I’ve done some readings, all on Zoom or YouTube. This seems to be the poetic way of the present, not such a bad thing, in fact. I’ve enjoyed “attending” readings from poets all around the country and world in the past four months, a welcome interference with the menace and challenge of the Plague.

Here I am reading “Totality,” the solar section of The Hidden Eyes of Things, a forthcoming epic poem about the unconscious activated through the discipline of astrology. Here I’m reading with Patrick Morrissey, whose book Light Box, John Tipton and I will be publishing with Verge Books in October 2021. My contribution begins at the thirteen-minute mark.

Here I am offering a reflection on the role of Mary in the Church, something posted on the website of my parish, Ascension Church. It’s also a reflection on Henry Adams’s Mont Saint Michel and Chartres.

And here I am as part of a large group reading for the new Ecopoetics anthology, Poetics for the More-than-Human World, that appeared on the Dispatches website. My contribution to this reading begins at the ten-minute mark. I also participate in the discussion after the readings proper conclude.

The Ecopoetics anthology includes a review of Earth Is Best, written by the indefatigable Mark Scroggins. Its first sentence gives me thrills and chills.

On September 10, 2020, I will be reading on Zoom for Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee, one of the few truly essential cultural institutions to poetry. I will be reading with Roberto Harrison, in conjunction with his virtual gallery show at Woodland Pattern, “Tropical Lung: Tec Alliance,” which is Immense. Magnificent. Terrifying.

Mabila Horizons / earth as interior solitudes, by Roberto Harrison.

Roberto is a Great Companion; I’m thrilled to be reading with him.

Finally, another section from The Hidden Eyes of Things, “The Strokes of the Moon,” was recently published on Blazing Stadium, the already dynamic and thrilling electronic journal edited by Tamas Panitz, Whit Griffin, and Lila Dunlap.

If you’re reading this, I hope you’re well, taking care of yourself, and taking care of others.

Kylan Rice on Verge Books.

A major review of Verge Books by Kylan Rice at West Branch. Rice treats in detail Alicia Cohen's Coherer and Joseph Donahue's Dark Church, along with Verge co-captain John Tipton's translation of Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes, and my own Phosphorescence of Thought. A feast of a review!

In other Verge news, Tirzah Goldenberg's first book, Aleph, has at last been published. Get yourself a copy!

Upcoming readings.

I'll be reading in these places in 2016.

March 9, 2016, in New York City at the Poetry Project, with Joseph Donahue. Prepare for some dark sorcery.

April 27, 2016, in Chicago at Sector 2337, performing with Father Bob Hutmacher. Prepare for some incantatory magic.

May 27, 2016, at the American Literature Association meeting in San Francisco, I will be on a roundtable panel discussing Robert Duncan, with Jeanne Heaving, Brian Teare, Aaron Shurin, Laura Moriarty, and Norma Cole.

September 15, 2016, in North Carolina at St. Andrews University, as part of its semester-long Black Mountain College festival. (Details to come.)

I've got some other potential readings cooking. I'll update this listing as things happen.

Two new essays.

Two new essays. The first, from an issue of Post-Medieval. The essay focuses on Dante. It was solicited by Sean Reynolds.

Imparadising, transhumanizing, intrining: Dante's Celestial Vision

The second, an essay from the Religion: Sources, Perspectives, Methodologies handbook, edited by Jeffrey Kripal, and recently published by Macmillan.

Poetic Religion: Forms of the Visionary Imagination

And the Verge Books website is live!

Verge Books

Coherer, by Alicia Cohen, coming from Verge Books.

Coherer, a new book of poetry by Alicia Cohen, will be published this coming winter 2016 by Verge Books.

I'm working on the new Verge website. Stay tuned.