June 27, 2015
Michael Friedman, Sarah Mangold, &
Jeff Alessandrelli
Saturday, June 27
7:00 pm
Michael Friedman is the author of the recently-published Martian Dawn & Other Novels (Little A) and two full-length books of poetry, including Species (The Figures), and four chapbooks. His work has appeared in several anthologies, including Great American Prose Poems (Scribner). Previously, he was the board chair of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, and an adjunct faculty member of Naropa University's MFA writing program. He is the cofounder of the literary journal Shiny, grew up in Manhattan, and lives in Denver.
Sarah Mangold is the author of the just-released Electrical Theories of Femininity (Black Radish) and Household Mechanics (New Issues). Her most recent chapbooks include The Goddess Can Be Recognized By Her Step (dusie kollektiv) and An Antenna Called The Body (LRL Textile Editions). From 2002-09 she edited Bird Dog, a print literary journal of innovative writing and art. She lives near Seattle.
Jeff Alessandrelli is the author of the full-length collection This Last Time Will Be the First. Other work has appeared in Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, Gulf Coast, Boston Review, and five chapbooks. The name of Jeff's dog is Beckett Long Snout; the name of his micro-press is Dikembe Press.
from Chapter One of Martian Dawn
She watched Richard move silently through the house, stopping to rearrange the flowers and pictures. Sometimes, she reflected, he was like a wild animal -- a black panther padding through the brush of Equatorial Guinea at dusk.
She knew that Richard was a sucker for her "come-hither" look. Lately he had been like putty in her hands. Because he would do whatever she wanted, she often had to pause to think about what it was she did want. And, too often, she didn't know. Did she even want Richard, now that she had him? Why not? He was a handsome movie star with millions of dollars. His intellect was passable.
Michael Friedman
How Information Lost Its Body
The loop no longer functions to connect a system to its
environment. Glowing empire. An elephant of walnuts.
Grizzly bear of prunes. Peel the motif of hothouse
evangelical. One can imagine other ways of being
other metaphors. Upholster a hopeful monster. The I in
hand. Realized muffin tin. Realized cake stand.
Sarah Mangold
Poem for Cindy Sherman
She set the stove to 450 degrees,
waited 15 minutes, then stuck
the snowman's bulbous head
inside. Thick with the greying
drudgeness of the season,
the drudging greyness.
Black the snowman's eyes burned.
Snow wears itself as a corpse
wears its skin.
As a mountain wears against the sky
the sky wears into a mountain.
Deeply in her cot she slept
thoughts unseen.
Black the burn; come see
the blinding.
Outside, slowly,
the sun.
Jeff Alessandrelli