Oliver Baez Bendorf Book Launch and Poetry Line-up

Join us to celebrate award-winning Longmont poet Oliver Baez Bendorf's launch of his third book, Consider the Rooster, as well as the launch of Jennifer Chang's An Authentic Life. The launch party also has a fantastic line-up of nationally recognized poets Emily Pérez, Aerik Francis, and Rajiv Mohabir, ready to read their work.

Join us to celebrate award-winning Longmont poet Oliver Baez Bendorf's launch of his third book, Consider the Rooster, as well as the launch of Jennifer Chang's An Authentic Life. The launch party also has a fantastic line-up of nationally recognized poets Emily Pérez, Aerik Francis, and Rajiv Mohabir, ready to read their work.

ABOUT THE CONSIDER THE ROOSTER

Amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic, the aftermath of George Floyd’s M**der by police, and the resulting upsurge in reactionary right-wing militia violence, a neighbor in Kalamazoo, Michigan threatens to call the police after discovering the author’s pet rooster. The rooster sounds the alarm and our author wakes to revolutionary transformation. An ecological consciousness embedded in these verses invites readers to acknowledge their place in a web of relations. Oliver Baez Bendorf’s voice resounds through liminal spaces, at dusk and dawn, across personal meditations and wider cultural awakenings to form a collection overflowing with freedom, rebellion, mischief, and song.

Preorder the book here.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Oliver Baez Bendorf is the author of Consider the Rooster, forthcoming October 1, 2024, and two previous collections of poems: Advantages of Being Evergreen and The Spectral Wilderness. His chapbook, The Gospel According to X, was selected for the Rane Arroyo Chapbook Series. His poems have circulated in publications like American Poetry Review, BOMB, The Nation, and Yale Review, and anthologies including Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics and Latino Poetry: A New Anthology. His work has been recognized with a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and a Publishing Triangle Award. Born and raised in Iowa and now living along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, he is a CantoMundo fellow and teaches in the MFA program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

Emily Pérez is the author of What Flies Want, winner of the Iowa Prize and a finalist for a Colorado Book Award; House of Sugar, House of Stone; and two chapbooks. She co-edited the anthology The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood, also a finalist for a Colorado Book Award. A CantoMundo fellow and Ledbury Critic, she’s received support from Hedgebrook, Bread Loaf, The Community of Writers, and others. She is a high school teacher and administrator in Denver, where she lives with her family.
Aerik Francis is a Queer Black & Latinx poet and teaching artist based in Denver, Colorado, USA. They have poetry published widely, links of which may be found at their website phaentompoet.com.
Jennifer Chang is the author of The History of Anonymity, Some Say the Lark, and An Authentic Life, which will be published in October 2024. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including American Poetry Review, The Believer, Best American Poetry 2012 and 2022, The New Yorker, The New York Times, A Public Space, and Yale Review and has been honored with fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, and the Elizabeth Murray Artists Residency and with the William Carlos Williams Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine. She is the poetry editor of New England Review.
Poet, memoirist, and translator, Rajiv Mohabir is the author of four books of poetry including Whale Aria (Four Way Books 2023), Cutlish (Four Way Books 2021) which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and recipient of the Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur. His poetry and nonfiction have been finalists for the 2022 PEN/America Open Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry and in Nonfiction, the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, and both second place and finalist for the Guyana Prize for Literature in 2022 (poetry and memoir respectively). He is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Colorado Boulder.

SCHEDULE
5:30 Welcome and Mingle
6:00 Readings
7:15 Signings

SPACE & ACCESSIBILITY

The Shop at MATTER is wheelchair accessible and has gender-neutral bathrooms. Chairs are provided for all. Masks are encouraged.

Host or Publisher MATTER, Ltd.