National Poetry Month 2023 Reading Recommendations
Did you know . . . Three Rooms Press was founded by poets! So we love when April rolls around and we can celebrate National Poetry Month. As a special celebration this year, we’ll be interviewing four of the incredible poets we’ve published on Instagram Live, including Hala Alyan, Jane LeCroy, Robert Gibbons and George Wallace. Be sure to follow us on Instagram so you can be a part of this! Here’s the April schedule, and a bit about the poets and their 3RP books. Click on any book to order your copy directly from Three Rooms Press on our National Poetry Month Shop. PLUS: ALL 3RP poetry books are 25% off this month only! Use code POETRY2023
Thursday, April 6, 2 pm: Hala Alyan (Atrium) with host Peter Carlaftes
Hala Alyan’s first full length poetry collection, Atrium (Three Rooms Press, 2012), won the 2013 Arab American Poetry Book of the Year. In Atrium, Hala traces lines of global issues in personal spaces, with fervently original imagery, and a fierce passion and intense intimacy that echo long after the initial reading. Since the publication of Atrium, Hala has published an additional three award-winning poetry collections, as well as two novels: The Arsonists City and Salt Houses. Her work has been published by The New Yorker, the Academy of American Poets, Lit Hub, The New York Times Book Review, and Guernica. Atrium received broad praise from numerous highly-esteemed poets. Naomi Shihab Nye: “Don’t miss the dazzling Hala Alyan. Wow. When she says ‘the poetry like a spear,’ she isn’t kidding.” Chitra Divakaruni: “Hala Alyan’s poems startle us with their beautiful, enigmatic images and capture us with their passionate engagement with the world.” Fred Marchant: “Start to finish, these poems convey a singular vision and represent an important new voice in the international poetry arena. Order your copy here.
Thursday, April 13, 2 pm: Jane LeCroy (Signature Play) with host Kat Georges
Jane LeCroy’s book, Signature Play (Three Rooms Press, 2013), is an exquisite collection of “lyrical poems.” Some poems stand alone; others include music composed by LeCroy’s musical partner Tom Abby. The work is lively, contemporary, strong, feminist and fragile at the same time, and sheet music included with the book makes for a unique mix of media. QR codes connect the user to listening and viewing and portals, and the book also features a mix of LeCroy’s collages and other art. Singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco says, “i think of Jane like blackberry brambles. juicy berries always ripening. to pop one of her poems into my mouth is pure pleasure.” Transformative artist Animal Prufrock exudes, “Jane LeCroy will be known as one of the great poets of this century. A sorcerer who spells songs and spills poems—The Emily Dickinson of our time—instead of leaving notes in aprons—she leaves us poems in boxes, freshly delivered—immediate delights and delicious pains…” King Missile frontman John S. Hall notes, “This is the overview that Jane’s work has long deserved, featuring poems that shift from the intimate to the infinite, often in the same, sweet, soulful breath. . . Three cheers for Three Rooms Press and Jane for putting together this stupendous collection!” Order your copy here.
Thursday, April 20, 2 pm: Robert Gibbons (Close to the Tree) with host Peter Carlaftes
In Robert Gibbon’s first full-length poetry collection, Close to the Tree (Three Rooms Press, 2012), issues of social inequality, love, loss, and family fuse history and art in a powerful collection. Art curator and historian Marc Primus notes, “The poetry of Robert Gibbons flows from him like a mighty river. It is powerful lyrical, strong and hip.” And teacher/author Miriam Hipsh remarks, “Mr. Gibbons’ poetry is breathtaking in its imagery. His words paint a heart-wrenching canvas and haunt the reader with deeply emotional truth-telling.” Gibbons’s work has been published in numerous anthologies, including several issues of Maintenant Dada Journal (Three Rooms Press), The Brownstone Poets Anthology, Tribes Magazine, The Cartier Street Review, and the anthology Before Passing (Great Weather for Media). He recently published the chapbook Flight (Poets Wear Prada). Gibbons grew up in Belle Glade, Florida, the eldest of five children, and earned a B.S. in History from Florida A&M. In 2007, he moved to New York City in search of his muse, Langston Hughes, and is a Cave Canem fellow. Order your copy of Close to the Tree here.
Thursday, April 27, 2 pm: George Wallace (Poppin Johnny) with host Kat Georges
George Wallace is the author of more than 40 poetry collection, including two Three Rooms Press releases, Poppin’ Johnny (Three Rooms Press, 2009) and EOS: Abductor of Man (a bilingual book with Greek translations from the original English; Three Rooms Press, 2012). Critic Robert Peake described raved, “These are poems as rough and vulnerable as manhood, as full of hope and heartbreak as the new world. If you want to know what America feels like in your mouth, read George Wallace out loud.” And poet Jack Foley exclaimed, “These poems—brilliant, funny, dangerous, cantankerous—announce the pure pleasure of speaking. Whatever will that man say next? But in doing so, they tell us something genuine about our experience of America. Why does nobody on television sound like George? He can be a stand-up tragedian, but he cannot be bland.” George Wallace is Writer in Residence at the Walt Whitman Birthplace, first poet laureate of Suffolk County, LI NY. His work is published in the US, UK, Italy, Macedonia and India. A prominent figure on the NYC poetry performance scene, he travels internationally to perform, lead writing workshops, and lecture on literary topics. Order your copy of Poppin’ Johnny here.
Here is a complete list of Three Rooms Press poetry books available in our National Poetry Month collection (alphabetical by author last name):
- Atrium, by Hala Alyan
- On Earth and In Hell: Early Poems by Thomas Bernhard (translated from the German by Peter Waugh)
- Drunkyard Dog, by Peter Carlaftes
- I Fold with the Hand I Was Dealt, by Peter Carlaftes
- It Starts from the Belly and Blooms, by Thomas Fucaloro
- Isula D’Anima / Soul Island, by Patrizia Gattaceca
- Our Lady of the Hunger, by Kat Georges
- Close to The Tree, by Robert Gibbons
- Heaven and Other Poems, by Israel Horovitz
- Ism is a Retrovirus, by Matthew Hupert
- Sharp Blue Stream, by David Lawton
- Signature Play, by Jane LeCroy
- This Is Belgian Chocolate: Manifestations of Poetry, by Philip Meersman
- Recreational Vehicles on Fire, by Jane Ormerod
- Welcome to the Museum of Cattle, by Jane Ormerod
- On This Borrowed Bike, by Lisa Panepinto
- Sign Language: A Painter’s Notebook, by John S. Paul
- Malanga Chasing Vallejo: Poems by César Vallejo (translated from the Spanish by Gerard Malanga)
- EOS: Abductor of Man, by George Wallace
- Poppin’ Johnny, by George Wallace
- Mike Watt: On and Off Bass