Kim Addonizio, Jan Beatty, Brittany Perham
Schedule
Thu Oct 10 2024 at 07:00 pm
UTC-07:00Location
Art House Gallery & Cultural Center | Berkeley, CA
KIM ADDONIZIO’s new book of poems is Exit Opera. Booklist said of her work, “Addonizio's poems are like swallows of cold, grassy white wine. They go down easy and then, moments later, you feel the full weight of their impact.…A smoky-voiced chanteuse, she sings the blues of lost youth and past wildness, protesting the assaults of age, the void left by a grown child and a deceased father, and the sorrows of loved ones battling disease. High heels and hangovers, horror movies and empty hotel rooms, regrets and resignation, elements all in Addonizio's articulation of lust, the quest for oblivion, and the body's unrelenting archiving of every pleasure and pain.…” Her previous collections include Now We’re Getting Somewhere, Tell Me, a finalist for the National Book Award, Mortal Trash, and Wild Nights. She has also published two novels, two story collections, two craft books on writing, The Poet’s Companion (with Dorianne Laux) and Ordinary Genius, and a memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life. Her honors include fellowships from the NEA, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and two Pushcart Prizes.
BRITTANY PERHAM’s most recent collection, Double Portrait, was selected by Claudia Rankine for the Barnard Women Poets Prize and was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. Donna Masini says, “Doubling back or spiraling around, incantatory, off-kilter, more song than story, the gorgeously obsessive poems in Double Portrait reflect the ways in which we are sprung into, or thrown off, orbit by desire, grief, sex, loveor simply facing the puzzle of another…[A] smart, surprising, and compelling new collection.” Her previous collections include The Curiosities, and a chapbook with Kim Addonizio, The Night Could Go in Either Direction. Her work has received support from Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, James Merrill House Foundation, University of Kentucky Mill House Residency Program, Vermont Studio Center, Wallace Stegner Fellowship Program, and Yaddo. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Stanford University and lives in San Francisco.