I’m delighted to share the news that my poem “To the Dirt Which in Time Will Consume Us All” has just been published over at Narrative Magazine! You can read the poem HERE (logging in is required to read the poem in its entirely, but it’s completely free to do so!) Thank you so much Jack, Carol, Tom, and the rest of the staff at Narrative!
Howdy friends. I’m delighted to share the news that I’ll be teaching an eight-week poetry workshop called “Welcoming Surprises” this spring at The Downtown Writer’s Center in sunny Syracuse (see class description below). Registration is inexpensive and open to the public. To learn more about The Downtown Writer’s Center, download the spring class schedule, and register for these workshops, visit the Center’s website below. Feel free to share with anyone who might be interested!
Welcoming Surprises with Christopher Citro. Wednesdays, 6:00-8:00. 8 weeks, starting April 18. In this workshop, we’ll discuss poetry that incorporates leaps, turns, and the unexpected. We’ll use prompts and exercises drawn from our readings to inspire new writing that helps us break out of our ruts and embrace fresh discoveries.
I’m thrilled to share the news that my poem “Yesterday I Saw a Small Snake Holding Still” has been accepted for publication in The Massachusetts Review! I thought I’d share the photograph that inspired the title–a small ringneck snake I encountered on the Onondaga Community College campus last autumn. (Apologies to any ophidiophobics out there.)
I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be returning this year for my sixth summer teaching at the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. I’ll be there for Week 1 (June 10-16), during which I’ll conduct seminars on “The Voices of the Poet” and “The Lyric Essay.”
My fellow week one faculty includes Alexander Weinstein, Samantha Tetangco, Randi Beck, and Phong Nguyen. The second week’s faculty includes Alexander Weinstein, Amelia Martens, Britton Shurley, Sequoia Nagamatsu, and Kea Wilson.
Click HERE to register for both or either weeks, learn about financial aid opportunities and fellowships (Parent Writers deadline April 21 & Voices of Color deadline March 20), and to enter this year’s contest (deadline March 31).
Come join us on the island!
Over-the-moon to receive my contributor copies of Passages North No. 39, which contains my poem “One Push on Top Is All it Takes.” I can’t wait to settle in and explore this amazing issue, packed with the likes of such favorites as Stephanie Bryant Anderson, Cortney Lamar Charleston, Leila Chatti, Jessica Cuello, Chelsea Hrechuk Dingman, Norman Dubie, Meghan Lamb, Kyle McCord, Anne Panning, Jericho Parms, and S. Jane Sloat to name a few.
It’s a special treat to be published in Passages North a second time, since they were kind enough to give my lyric essay “Each Breeze Began Life Somewhere As a Little Cough” a home last year as online Bonus Content.
Huge thank yous to Patricia Killelea, Willow Grosz and the rest of PN’s editors and readers!
I’m honored and delighted that the manuscript of my second book of poems — the newest version, just a few months old — has been named a finalist for the Georgia Poetry Prize from The University of Georgia Press. Huge congratulations to the winner Rosa Lane, to the runner-up Samuel Amadon, and to the other finalists.
What a wonderful time I had reading poetry on Saturday night at the LiterarY Dinner! So great to see so many friends in the audience! Thank you so much everyone for coming out and supporting the Syracuse YMCA Arts programs. Thank you to my fellow reader Cheryl Reed, and musical artists Daniel Fields and Sabine Krantz. Thank you to our hosts Neva and Richard Pilgrim and Johanna Keller and Charles Martin. Warmth and good company on a cold February night!
(Thank you to Cheryl Reed for this photograph of us)
I’m delighted to share the news that my collaborative prose poem, “The Star Wars Sheets I had at Five,” written with Dustin Nightingale, has just been published in the final issue of Inter|rupture, beside a host of other new and fellow former contributors, including John Gallaher, Gale Marie Thompson, Brandon Amico, Noah Falck, Mary Biddinger, John Sibley Williams, Dalton Day, Adam Tedesco, Jennifer MacBain-stephens, just to name a few wonderfuls. Congratulations to editors Curtis Perdue, Elizabeth Onusko, and Anna Pollock-Nelson on a great run and an awesome final issue, and best wishes on your future projects!
Read said poem HERE.
Read our previous contribution, “The Weight of Everything,” from the Oct 2014 issue HERE.
Dear friends. I’m giving a poetry reading next Saturday, February 17 as part of a LiterarY Dinner in support of the Syracuse YMCA Arts Branch and The Downtown Writer’s Center and all of the amazing and valuable work they do in the community. The cost for attending is $50. I’ll be reading my poetry for ten minutes. The evening will also include a prose reading by novelist Cheryl Reed. There’ll be music. There’ll be food. There’ll be great fun.
If you’re interested please RSVP the hosts. Complete info below. Feel free to share with anyone you think might be interested.
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•Hosts: Neva & Dick Pilgrim, Charles Martin & Johanna Keller 917-584-1878
•Date: SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17 AT 6:00 PM
•Location: The Pilgrim Home / 438 Brookford Rd Syracuse, NY
•Featuring: Poet Christopher Citro & Novelist Cheryl Reed as well as Musical Artists!
•To Benefit YMCA Arts
DON’T YOU DESERVE A GREAT NIGHT OUT IN FEBRUARY?
Brrr, it’s cold. If you have been with us in the past, you know this is a fantastically warm party for the coldest month! If you are new to the Y programs, you’ll find it’s a terrific community of truly caring people. Please join us for the annual LiterarY Dinner in support of the YMCA Arts Branch and the Downtown Writers Center. The Y Arts Branch offers extraordinary programs that enrich our town.
The evening includes dinner, wine, entertainment and fabulous company.
For more than a decade, members of the cultural community all over Syracuse host dinners in their homes to raise money for the Y Arts Branch and its programs. All the hospitality is donated and poets and writers and musicians donate their services too.
A tax-deductible donation of $50 per person is requested (please RSVP and bring cash or a check with you on that evening made out to YMCA Syracuse). Every dollar raised goes to the Y arts programs that enrich our town and bring arts to children of our community.
So, for the cost of a dinner out, you get dinner out AND entertainment AND a whole lot more fun AND do some tax-deductible good….We hope you can join us!
Johanna Keller & Charles Martin
Neva Pilgrim & Dick Pilgrim
I’m thrilled to share the news that I’ll be teaching two eight-week creative writing workshops this winter at The Downtown Writer’s Center in sunny Syracuse, NY — a Monday night poetry workshop focusing on very contemporary poetry from literary journals and recent books and a Wednesday night workshop focusing on the lyric essay (the lyric essay course will be a repeat of the course I taught last year). Both classes begin the last week of January (see the class descriptions below). Registration is inexpensive and open to the public. To learn more about The Downtown Writer’s Center, download the spring class schedule, and register for these workshops, visit the Center’s website HERE. Feel free to share with anyone who might be interested!
In the Landscape of Contemporary Poetry with Christopher Citro. Mondays, 6:00-8:00. 8 weeks, starting January 29. “I have/enough ink to give you the sea” writes Ocean Vuong in his 2016 book, Night Sky with Exit Wounds. We’ll discuss poetry from recent books or journals, then use prompts from our readings to inspire new writing
The Lyric Essay with Christopher Citro. Wednesdays, 6:00-8:00. 8 weeks, starting January 31. “The lyric essay partakes of the poem in its density and shapeliness, its distillation of ideas and musicality of language. It partakes of the essay in its weight, in its overt desire to engage with facts” (Tall & D’Agata). Explore this exciting hybrid genre, using prompts to inspire.