Annie Lanzillotto sonnets and Gabriella Belfiglio poems Dual Book Launch

Sunday April 26

Gabriella Belfiglio and Annie Lanzillotto

2pm—5pmEST live, in-person event

Dual Book Launch / (and Poetry Workshop for those who want to stay!)

$20 tickets in advance

Books for sale and signing

City Lore, 56 East 1st Street, New York, New York 10003

Gabriella and Annie will read from their new books. Then after a vino & cookie break, everyone is welcome to stay for a fun writing exercise and group share. Gabriella will start us off with a centering meditation.

BOOKS:

, sonnets by Annie Lanzillotto, is a limited edition print run from Quelle Presse chapbooks, Salt Lake City. Form and rhyme scheme sweep the poet's heart of moments from her life, magnifying animal and spiritual aspects of love. Following Petrarch, each sonnet is 14 lines with a volta: a turn in argument. Lanzillotto's sonnets echo Shakespearean rhyme scheme, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Themes span: love from afar, first glances, loss of love, limerence, first gay kiss, unrequited love, the forever nature of love, red flags, betrayals, love adventure, gender shapeshifting, eco-love, heartache, agape love. . .  From Zerega Ave to The Nile River, from Alphabet City and The Village to Left Hand Canyon, and from Providence to Venezia, these moments happen, on the sidewalk, schoolyard, scaffolding, river skin, and a lesbian bar called “Nowhere.”

, is Gabriella M. Belfiglio’s debut poetry book. These poems rise out of the page and take you by the hand. Belfiglio explores the raw truth of an immigrant family across generations, from the point of view of a child moving into womanhood. Her journey steers us from rural Sicily to urban America.  In a combination of grounding narrative and sensory lyrical writing this book delivers a deft eye for finding meaning in the commonplace. It is a heartfelt path of defining oneself at the intersection of queerness, ethnicity, and spirituality.  The ethereal yet earthy diction crosses the threshold between old world and modern life realities.  Whether in nature or in the niches of cityscapes there are many surprising moments of conflict and connection.  This finely tuned book is full of new beginnings and what it means to belong.  Belfiglio examines identity through the lenses of ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and feminism, always bringing one in deeper, allowing them to connect to their own unique voyage. Her longing and keen vision encourage the readers to confront complex emotions and look more closely at their own relationship to the self and the surrounding world.  This vulnerable and grounded story will help readers enhance what is most important—letting their own truth shine.

BIOS:

Annie Rachele Lanzillotto is a memoirist, poet, and performance-artist whose work has been called riveting and volcanic. Her books include: Dyke Rubicons (Quelle Presse chapbooks), Whaddyacall the Wind? (Bordighera Press), the double flip book: Hard Candy: Caregiving, Mourning, and Stage Light; and Pitch Roll Yaw, (Guernica World Editions), L is for Lion: an italian bronx butch freedom memoir (SUNY Press; finalist for LAMBDA Literary Award), and Schistsong (Bordighera Press.)  Her albums include: Blue Pill; Never Argue With a Jackass; Swampjuice: Yankee with a Southern Peasant Soul.  She podcasts as Annie's Story Cave, and is the Artistic Director of Street Cry Inc.  AnnieLanzillotto.com

Gabriella M. Belfiglio is the author of the poetry collection The Fig Thief (Guernica World Editions). Gabriella’s poem “Erasure,” won the W.B. Yeats Poetry Contest. Gabriella’s work has been widely published in anthologies and journals including Radius, The Centrifugal Eye, The Potomac Review, and Lambda Literary Review. She is a founding member of the Sicilian American poetry group: The Ferlinghetti Girls with Phyllis Capello and Paola Corso. Gabriella is a queer artist who lives in Brooklyn, NY with her partner, child, and four cats. She teaches self-defense and conflict resolution, to people of all ages throughout the five boroughs. www.gabriellabelfiglio.info

*HEALTH PROTECTION:

If you need health or mobility accommodations, contact Annie at [email protected]

To best protect the immunocompromised (like Annie), if you have been exposed to people with cold or flu symptoms, or live with someone who has symptoms please do not come. If you have air traveled in recent days, please mask. Err on the side of caution. Thank you!  

*If you need a discounted ticket or would like to volunteer at the event, contact Gabriella at [email protected]

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Host or Publisher City Lore and Bronx Music Heritage Center