GI 8: Pollock, Browne, Magnus, Bennett

GENERAL IDEA 8 is coming up! Sunday October 7 at 7PM at Brickbat Books. Readings by Iain Haley Pollock, Laynie Browne, Magus Magnus, and Jacob A. Bennett.

Iain Haley Pollock's first collection of poems, Spit Back a Boy, won the 2010 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.  He teaches English at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia and poetry at the Solstice MFA Program of Pine Manor College. 

Laynie Browne is the author of nine collections of poetry and one novel.  Her most recent publications include: Roseate, Points of Gold (Dusie, 2011), The Desires of Letters (Counterpath, 2010), The Scented Fox (Wave, 2007), and Daily Sonnets (Counterpath, 2007). Her work is forthcoming in The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry  as well as Ecopoetry: A Contemporary American Anthology  (Trinity University Press). Her honors include: the National Poetry Series Award, of the Contemporary Poetry Series Award, and two Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative American Poetry.  She has taught at The University of Washington, Bothell, at Mills College, Naropa University, and at the University of Arizona. She has also taught poetry-in-the-schools for various organizations including Teachers & Writers Collaborative in NYC and Seattle Arts & Lectures.  At University of Arizona she developed and ran an outreach program which brought graduate and undergraduate students into schools to teach residencies in imaginative writing in three genres (poetry, fiction, & creative non-fiction).  Since 2011 she has been a volunteer mentor for the Afghan Women’s Writing Project (http://awwproject.org/). Recent editorial projects include curating for the online journal Trickhouse, as well as a collection of writings celebrating the life and work of poet Stacy Doris on http://www.thevolta.org/. She is co editor of I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women (Les Figues Press, 2012). 

Magus Magnus is the author of The Re-echoes (just out from Furniture Press); Idylls for a Bare Stage (twentythreebooks 2011); Heraclitean Pride (Furniture Press 2010); and Verb Sap (Narrow House 2008). Two poems from Verb Sap - "Radical Crumb" and "Empirical/Imperial Demonstration" - appear in the 10th edition of Pearson Longman's English Anthology textbook, Literature. Washington D.C.'s Shakespeare Theatre Company will host a performance showcase of Idylls for a Bare Stage at Sidney Harman Hall in Spring 2013; development of the Idyll as a performance form can be tracked at http://sharedimagining.blogspot.com/"

Jacob A. Bennett has only known you four weeks and three days, but to him it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days. And the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days. But the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day, but then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. He has it written down, and he can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it.

GI 7: Hamm, Karl, Marinovich, Wong

General Idea 7 comes to you on Friday May 25 at 7pm. Brickbat Books. Readings by: Christine Hamm, Steven Karl, Filip Marinovich, and Angela Veronica Wong.

Steven Karl is the author of the chapbooks, State(s) of Flux (Peptic Robot Press, 2009) (Ir)Rational Animals (Flying Guillotine Press, 2010) emissions/ of (H_NGM_N, 2011) and with Angela Veronica Wong, Don't Try This On Your Piano or am i standing here with my hair down (Lame House Press, 2012). He is the poetry editor of Sink Review and Immaculate Disciples Press and a news editor for Coldfront Magazine. Currently he lives in New York but will relocate to Miami in August.

Angela Veronica Wong is the author of several chapbooks and one full-length collection of poems entitled how to survive a hotel fire (Coconut Books 2012). She lives in Manhattan and on the internet at www.angelaveronicawong.com.

Christine Hamm is getting her PhD in English Literature, and teaches at CUNY. Nominated four times for a Pushcart, her poetry has been in Rhino, Stone Canoe, Pebble Lake Review, Women's Studies Quarterly, Blue Earth Review, Rattle, and many others. She has published three books of poetry, and the most recent, Echo Park, was just released from Blazevox. Christine is the east coast poetry editor for Ping*Pong, a literary journal published by the Henry Miller Library of Big Sur, CA.

Filip Marinovich is the author of Zero Readership and And If You Don't Go Crazy I'll Meet You Here Tomorrow and of the forthcoming Wolfman Librarian. His poems can be found online in Eoagh, Brooklyn Rail, and Esque. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

GI 6: Etter, Fletcher, Hess, and Spallholz

GENERAL IDEA 6 is on March 31 at 7PM at Brickbat Books (709 South 4th Street, Philadelphia, PA) with readings by Sarah Rose Etter, Sasha Fletcher, Mickey Hess, and Julianna Spallholz.

A retired shipbuilder, Mickey Hess is Associate Professor of English at Rider University, where he teaches arc welding, mig welding, and creative nonfiction. In the early months of 2012, he has released two books: The Nostalgia Echo (a novel) and The Novelist & the Rapper (stories). He is hard at work on a biography of the rap star Ol' Dirty Bastard.

photo by Katie Reing

Sarah Rose Etter's chapbook, Tongue Party, was selected as the winner of the 2010 Caketrain Chapbook Contest by Deb Olin Unferth. Her work has appeared in The Black Warrior Review, Salt Hill Journal, The Collagist and more. She lives in Philadelphia where she co-curates the Tire Fire Reading series.

Julianna Spallholz's short (and very short) fiction has appeared in Caketrain, Denver Quarterly, Sleepingfish, Tarpaulin Sky, and elsewhere.  Julianna has performed and collaborated her work with musicians, visual artists, a DJ, and a chef.  For the moment, she lives in upstate New York.  Her book, The State of Kansas, is available from GenPop Books.  Please visit her website  at http://www.juliannaspallholz.com/

Sasha Fletcher is the author of the novella WHEN ALL OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED MARCHING BANDS WILL FILL THE STREETS AND WE WILL NOT HEAR THEM BECAUSE WE WILL BE UPSTAIRS IN THE CLOUDS [ml press 2010] and the poetry chapbooks I AIN'T ASKED ANY PARDON FOR ANYTHING I DONE [the greying ghost 2011] and I CANNOT PRETEND TO BE A GHOST TODAY [paper pusher 2012]. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.