James Mesiti discusses Petal / Transport

What happens when questioning how language is used and significance is given become the primary lens by which the poetic word decides to express itself? When fragmentation and cohesion are both equally at odds but also in harmony? When assurance and certainty avoid being present, however cannot help peeking through the cracks and letting themselves occasionally be known? The result may just be petal / transport. Mesiti's collection quickly becomes a sort of odd artifact that is unsure of itself and appears to hide behind what seems to be experiment but is also confident in the opportunity for poetic reflection it provides. Everything - from meaning to the space of the page itself - is up for grabs and intended to be explored.

James Mesiti is a Ph.D. student in Hispanic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. James is an Albany, New York native who studies 20th century Hispanic poetry and, particularly, the poetic links that can bring together the Iberian Peninsula with the Americas. His research also seeks to engage poetry’s approximations to not only other literary genres, such as by means of poetry in prose or poetic prose, but also to other art forms, for example as manifested through visual or experimental poetry. In addition, he authored a book of poems titled Algo de nadie that was released in 2021. Academically prior to his time at Penn, he did a master's in Spanish at Saint Louis University Madrid and a master's in international relations at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals. He completed his B.A. at Hamilton College.

Marta J. Sanchis Ferrer is a Ph.D. student in Spanish and Portuguese at the Univerisity of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on mujeres medicina in Bolivia, Brasil and Uruguay. Marta's doctoral dissertation, tentatively titled “Temporalidades Decoloniales: Curanderas y Other-than-humans”, analyzes literary work by Armonía Somers, Clarice Lispector and Liliana Colanzi, and examines interviews conducted to women healers through the lens of decolonial frameworks.

Reviews

“Reading James Mesiti, I am always overcome with the feeling that I have stumbled upon a trove of correspondence left on boulders, or under trees, gift-communiques between slightly mischievous nature spirits, fjallvættir scribbling to sjóvættir, which leave me feeling re-enchanted with the world.” – Jay Kirk

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