Still Life in Ditch
Fausto Paravidino, Translated by Ilaria Papini

Fausto Paravidino was born in Genoa in 1976 and grew up in Rocca Grimalda (in the province of Alessandria), a small town in Piedmont, and now lives mainly in Rome. He started acting at an early age. At 19 he began attending the Acting School of the Teatro Stabile of Genoa, then moved to Rome where he continued to act in the theater and later in film and television. In Rome he also started writing plays. First Trinciapollo (literally “Poultry Shears”), then Gabriele (with Giampiero Rappa) and 2 Fratelli (2 Brothers), La Malattia della Famiglia M (The Malady of the M Family), Natura Morta in un Fosso (Still Life in Ditch), Noccioline (Peanuts - for the "Connection" project of the London National Theatre) and Genova 01 (for the Royal Court Theatre). Then came Morbid, Exit, Il Caso B (The Case of B) Il Diario di Mariapia (Mariapia's Diary) and I Vicini (The Neighbors - for the Théatre de Bretagne). His plays are staged regularly in theaters all over Europe and have won numerous awards, both in Italy and abroad. Fausto translates out of English, mostly Shakespeare and Pinter. He has also written for Radio 2 and Radio 3, and he often directs plays, whether written by him or others. His first feature film as a director, Texas, written with Iris Fusetti and Carlo Orlando, was presented at the Venice Film Festival in 2005 and at the New Directors/New Films festival at Lincoln Center-MoMa in 2006. His more recent projects include an Italian production of La Malattia della Famiglia M, a Swedish production of Il Diario di Mariapia (Stockholm, Dramaten, November 2010 - Italian tour 2012), a French production of La Maladie de la Famille M at the Comédie Française (Paris 2011-2013), the television show FIL (Rai 3) which he also hosts, and the production of his play Exit at the Teatro Stabile of Bolzano (2012-2013). He is currently conducting a theater workshop, "Crisi" ("Crisis") at the Teatro Valle Occupato in Rome.

“Building on a classic noir premise-the discovery of an unidentified dead girl, dumped on the side of a road-Fausto Paravidino's Still Life in Ditch, masterfully translated by Ilaria Papini, creates something boldly original: a riveting murder mystery constructed entirely of vivid monologues. As the plot unfolds through the intricate interplay of voices, we are not only swept towards a powerhouse climax but-even more impressively-taken deep into the minds of a half-dozen living, breathing unforgettable characters.” —Harold Schechter, Author of Psycho, USA

“Ilaria Papini's luminous, utterly theatrical translation is a gift to English-speaking audiences and to anyone who loves challenging, intelligent theatre, artfully rendered.” —Richard Schotter, author of The Sussman Variations

“Ilaria Papini's wonderful translation captures the energy and grit of Fausto Paravidino's Still Life in Ditch. The language is terse and elegant. His edgy characters lift off the page and get in your face....A gifted young writer moving into his prime.” —Jan Merete Weiss, author of These Dark Things

He Looked Beyond My Faults and Saw My Needs
Leonard Gontarek

Leonard Gontarek is the author of four books of poems: St. Genevieve Watching Over Paris, Van Morrison Can't Find His Feet, Zen For Beginners and Déjá Vu Diner. His poems have appeared in the anthologies, The Best American Poetry, The Working Poet and Joyful Noise: American Spiritual Poetry. He conducts poetry workshops in the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership. He twice received poetry fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and was the 2011 Philadelphia Literary Death Match Champion. He hosts the Green Line Café Reading and Interview Series.

“Someone walks around town, sees things and writes them down. He remembers what people say to him: 'The planes kept going/transporting a strange cargo, bodies packed in ice and oranges.' He might be furtive: 'Try not to look at the others,/on the way in, and out.' He knows that 'the world is made up of little stories' in which dreams and everyday events switch places. The movie might make no sense, but the poetry of Leonard Gontarek sure does. It makes sense the way 'Everything [is] heightened in the crosshairs of God.' And that is the kind of sense you need these days to get on in a world where 'someone dressed as a funeral director [keeps] dropping a hand in your lap/in a movie theater.'” —John Yau

“Leonard Gontarek's poems worship the wondrous, mythical and marvelous. They laugh in the face of death and dogs and gods. You want to listen to what each poem has to say to you, to feel more alive, to feel like you're dying, distinct, to feel 'sadness separated from joy.'” —Daniel Nester

“Gontarek crafts poems that resonate with emotional candor and depth, even as their sometimes startling imagery jars and disquiets. … an engaging voice in American verse.” —Rain Taxi

“He's a poet's poet.” —Philadelphia Inquirer

“By combining images and objects that appear, only at very first glance, to be unrelated abstractions, Gontarek offers his readers details that crystallize his world and the humanity that populates it. Up close, they unify and signify. Ultimately, he returned this reader safely home.” —The Pedestal Magazine

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The Grind
Michael Cirelli

Michael Cirelli is the author of four collections of poetry, two books of curricula, and his work can also be found inThe Best American Poetry, World Literature Today, and on the HBO series Def Poetry and Brave New Voices. He is the Executive Director of Urban Word NYC, the founder of Urban Word Los Angeles, and he teaches courses and directs critical literacy conferences at New York University, the University of Wisconsin, and Michigan State University. He is currently working on a collection of short stories entitled The Pure Land.

“It was the poem, 'Rivers,' that got me thinking about Michael Cirelli's gifted flow. 'I'm floating down the Pawtuxet River/ in a basket made of plastic/ Straws, clear as our front windows.' The Grind is anchored and flooded by the tributaries of place; the ebb and flow of a family's lifework. Flow is the word for this book's heart and dexterity; flow is the word for this book's straight-forward, straight up grace.” —Terrance Hayes

 

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Goldfish and Rose
Robert Hershon

This is Robert Hershon's thirteenth poetry collection, his other most recent titles being Calls from the Outside World and The German Lunatic. His work has appeared in American Poetry Review, The Brooklyn Rail, Vanitas, The Nation, and The Recluse, among many others, and he has written for the websites of The Poetry Foundation and Best American Poetry. He is co-editor of Hanging Loose Press. Hershon has won two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts and three from the New York Foundation for the Arts. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Donna Brook.

What critics have said about earlier books:

“Downhome poems that stay put…it doesn't get any better.” —Robert Creeley

“Writing poetry is as natural an act for Hershon as walking across the Brooklyn Bridge toward home…he is utterly at ease on the page: amused and amusing, conversational and philosophical.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist

“The latest example of Robert Hershon's impish wit with its trenchant edge…” —David Lehman, The Wall Street Journal

“Bob Hershon's unsentimental eye for the touchingly odd, thee amusingly odd, and the odd that needs correcting…is everywhere present in this terrific new book.” —Charles North

“Hershon is one of the funniest, wittiest poets I know, and he's also one of those rare ones who can hit you right in the heart.” —Bill Zavatsky, The Poetry Foundation website

“Few poets write about community and the individual's changing role in the way Hershon does…He captures brief moments of experience reminiscent of William Carlos Williams.” —Bloomsbury Review

“…a master of poetic style in which the demotic rubs elbows with the fancy literary.” —Reagan Upshaw,The Poetry Project Newsletter