The third season of the fort gondo poetry series kicks off on Saturday, September 7, 2013, at 7 p.m. The three poets featured at the event will be Stephanie Anderson, Dot Devota, and Brandon Shimoda. The series is curated by Jessica Baran and Jennifer Kronovet, who are both working artists and poets as well.
“A reading series is a refuge, a radiant location, for poets especially, who are exiles in so many ways, as well as patrons of one another,” Shimoda says. “I think of all reading series as bright spots on a map…that Jenny and Jessica are themselves poets means they understand this, and care even more deeply.”
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He adds that he is excited to be reading with two of his friends, as well as favorite poets, Anderson and Devota.
“The opportunity to read with them is also an opportunity to complement the work they’re doing, which means so much to me,” he says.
Shimoda, a native of California, is the author of four books, most recently Portuguese (Octopus Books/Tin House), and O Bon (Litmus Press). He is also the co-editor of two upcoming books. One is a collection of writings by Lebanese-American poet and artist Etel Adnan, the other a collection of new poems by Wong May.
Anderson, who lives in Chicago, edits the micropress Projective Industries. Her chapbooks include In the Particular Particular (New Michigan Press), and The Choral Mimeographs (Dancing Girl Press) Her full-length collection, In the Key of Those Who Can No Longer Organize Their Environments, was published in July by Horse Less Press.
Devota, who travels constantly, is the author of three books: The Eternal Wall (Cannibal), and MW: A Midwest Field Guide ((Editions19). Her next collection And The Girls Worried Terribly is forthcoming from Noemi Press.
All Along Press will hand print letterpress broadsides featuring a work by each poet—a hallmark of the series. Next month, poets Elaine Bleakney and Mathias Svalina read on October 19, followed by Lynn Melnick and Prageeta Sharma (November 15), and Graham Foust and E. Tracy Grinnell (December 6).
Shimoda says though he’s honored to be opening the season, he is also a little nervous.
“It’s always a supremely vulnerable and terrifying situation to stand before an audience and share what has occupied the less expressible parts of my mind in the form of these things, poems I’ve been very slowly making,” he says. “But its a necessary part of the process: to hear, to be heard, to be surprised, to be confused, to be (sometimes) disappointed, and hopefully to learn and feel something new.”
Fort Gondo is located at 3151 Cherokee. For more information on the series, including upcoming readings, visit fortgondo.com/poetry.html.
