George Wallace and Walt Whitman Birthplace proudly present season three of POETS BUILDING BRIDGES: A TRIANGULATION PROJECT, inaugurated in March 2022 with the purpose of enhancing dialogue between communities of writers across the US and internationally. Based on a shared small-group experience, these Saturday zoom sessions engage three distinct and well defined communities of poets with each other to share work and foster further interaction. In Season Three, POETS BUILDING BRIDGES will build on that experience, triangulating national and international groups based not only on location but additionally offering key small press publications an opportunity to form a participating group.
THIS IS A ZOOM ONLY EVENT.
Live on zoom. archived on Youtube. For Season 2 visit our YouTube Channel >>
San Antonio TX: Octavio Quintanilla | Natalie Trevino | Matt Tavares
Octavio Quintanilla is the author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing, the founder and director of the literature & arts festival, VersoFrontera, publisher of Alabrava Press, and former Poet Laureate of San Antonio, TX. His Frontextos (visual poems) have been published and exhibited widely. His new poetry collection, The Book of Wounded Sparrows, is forthcoming from Texas Review Press in fall 2024. He teaches Literature and Creative Writing at Our Lady of the Lake University.
Matthew Tavares is the translator of Wendy Barker’s Those Roads, These Moons forthcoming from Alabrava Press. His work has appeared in Allegory Ridge‘s Anthology Aurora, High Noon, Cagibi, and Texas Books in Review. He is also the Co-Director of the literary festival VersoFrontera and is currently pursuing an MFA from Our Lady of the Lake University.
Born in Mexico and raised in Texas, Natalia Trevino is a Professor of English at Northwest Vista College and a member of the Macondo Foundation. She is the author of Lavando La Dirty Laundry (2014 Mongrel Empire Press) and VirginX (2018 Finishing Line Press). Natalia completed her Master’s degree in English at The University of Texas San Antonio, and she completed her Master’s of Fine Arts Degree in Creative Writing at The University of Nebraska, Omaha. Her poems have won the Alfredo Cisneros de Moral Award, the Wendy Barker Creative Writing Award, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, the San Antonio Artist Foundation Literary Prize, the Menada Literary Award in Macedonia and others.
Roadside Press Poets: Michele McDannold | Wm Taylor Jr, Dan Denton Kerry Trautman | Westley Heine
Michele McDannold has organized poetry events and/or performed poetry with a bunch of unabashed free-thinkers across this great United States, most happily by roadtrip but sometimes by plane, train or coincidence. She spends most of her time producing and publishing books, when she’s not out killing miles with her magical jeep. Stealing the Midnight from a Handful of Days (Punk Hostage Press) and By Plane, Train or Coincidence ( Roadside Press) are her full-length poetry collections.
Dan Denton is a former UAW chief steward, veteran of four dozen different factory jobs and current full time writer. His work has often been featured in magazines, union journals, and newspapers, and has been widely published amongst today’s best underground and independent writers. He is the author of the novels $100-A-Week Motel (Punk Hostage Press, 2021), The Dead and the Desperate (Roadside Press, 2023) and the poetry/novella hybrid Finding Jesus & Prayers To My Saints (Gutter Snob Books, 2022.)
Westley Heine is the author of Busking Blues: Recollections of a Chicago Street Musician and Squatter through Roadside Press (2022), 12 Chicago Cabbies (2021), and volume of poetry The Trail of Quetzalcoatl (2016). He has featured twice at the Green Mill Poetry Slam in Uptown Chicago, and is the new host of the poetry open mic at The Gallery Cabaret in Bucktown every 4th Saturday. Most recently Roadside Press has released his new poetry collection entitled Street Corner Spirits, audio excerpts of which are now available on most streaming services under the same title.
William Taylor Jr. lives and writes in San Francisco. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, and a volume of fiction. His work has been published widely in literary journals, including Rattle, The New York Quarterly, and The Chiron Review. He was a recipient of the 2013 Kathy Acker Award, and edited Cocky Moon: Selected Poems of Jack Micheline (Zeitgeist Press, 2014). His latest poetry collection, A Room Above a Convenience Store, is available from Roadside Press.
Kerry Trautman is a lifelong Ohioan and co-founder of ToledoPoet.com and the “Toledo Poetry Museum” page on Facebook which promote Northwest Ohio poetry events. In 2019 her one-act play “Mass” was a winner of The Toledo Repertoire Theater’s “Toledo Voices” competition. Kerry’s most recent books are Artifacts (NightBallet Press 2017,) To be Nonchalantly Alive (Kelsay Books 2020,) Marilyn: Self-Portrait, Oil on Canvas (Gutter Snob Books 2022,) Unknowable Things (Roadside Press 2022,) and Irregulars (Stanchion Books 2023.)
Milan Italy Poets: Barbara Rabita | Edoardo Callegari | Roberto Chiapparoli | Antonio Laneve
Barbara Rabita lives in Milan has written some poems in the collection Sentire published by Pagine, the book of poems Convergenze written with Antonio Laneve and Poliedri: Her poems were published by Centro Tipografico Livornese. She is also in a plaquette of different authors in L’Artigiano di versi published by Stampa 2009. She is part of the management of Piccolo Museo della Poesia in Piacenza and a member of BIPA (Biennale di Poesia fra le Arti).
Edoardo Callegari lives in San Rocco al Porto (Lodi), he is Director of the Scientific Committee of Piccolo Museo della Poesia di Piacenza. Poet and playwright, in 2022 he published a book of poems entitled Liturgie di un magnifico (Liturgies of a magnificent) and presented the national premiere of the play Umbra Luminis – Teresa Miss Avila. He is one of five intellectuals involved in 2023 by artist Marco Nereo Rotelli in his next project entitled Air, commissioned by the Italian Parliament.
Roberto Chiapparoli lives in Tortona (Alessandria), he is one of the founding member and vice-president of the Bipa – Biennale Italiana di Poesia fra le Arti and member of the directive board of the Piccolo Museo della Poesia di Piacenza. He has published 2 anthologies of poems from 2014 to 2016 and 1 artistic book of visual poetry in 2017.
Antonio Laneve lives in Milan has written the book of poems Convergenze with Barbara Rabita, Calembourgh, both published by Centro Tipografico Livornese and Lezione frontale by La Vita Felice; he is also in a plaquette of different authors in L’Artigiano di versi published by Stampa 2009. He is part of the management of Piccolo Museo della Poesia in Piacenza and a member of BIPA (Biennale di Poesia fra le Arti).
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POETS BUILDING BRIDGES is produced by Poetrybay Productions for the Walt Whitman Birthplace.
