WXXI Poetry Moments 2014

A partnership with BOA Editions, celebrating more than 35 years of independent publishing

WXXI will celebrate poets and their beautiful words during the month of April, which is National Poetry Month. Once again this year, we will have a special series of Poetry Moments, created in collaboration with Rochester-based BOA Editions. These WXXI / BOA Poetry Moments will be broadcast April 21 – 25 on AM 1370 and Classical 91.5.

Listen to the series:



The Keys to the Jail by Keetje Kuipers

Read by Peter Connors

Airs Monday, April 21

Keetje Kuipers is a native of the Northwest. She earned her BA at Swarthmore College and her MFA at the University of Oregon. She was recently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, and in 2007, she was the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Resident. Kuipers used the residency to complete work on her book Beautiful in the Mouth, which won the 2009 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Her new collection The Keys to the Jail is forthcoming from BOA in spring 2014. Kuipers has been the recipient of fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, Oregon Literary Arts, and Soapstone. Her poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, West Branch, Painted Bride Quarterly, Willow Springs, and AGNI, among others, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize for six consecutive years. She is currently an assistant professor at Auburn University.

Flickr photo by Nicholas Tonelli

At My Daughter’s Birth by Anthony Piccione

Read by Sandi Henschel

Airs Tuesday, April 22

Born in Sheffield, Alabama and raised on Long Island, Anthony Piccione is the author of four collections of poetry from BOA Editions, Ltd.: The Guests at the Gate (2002), For the Kingdom (1995), Seeing It Was So (1986), and Anchor Dragging (1978, chosen by Archibald MacLeish for BOA's A. Poulin, Jr. New Poets of America Series). As Professor Emeritus of English and creative writing at the State University of New York College at Brockport, Piccione taught at Upright Hall, the writers' retreat at his Crow Hill Farm in Prattsburgh, New York. His poems, interviews, essays, and reviews have appeared in dozens of magazines and journals. Anthony Piccione died in November 2001.

Flickr photo by Dave Herholz

Explaining the Land Mine to the Small Child by Aracelis Girmay

Read by Chandra McKenzie

Airs Wednesday, April 23

In 2011, Aracelis Girmay was presented with the Isabella Gardner Award for Kingdom Animalia. The prize is awarded biennially to a poet in midcareer with a new book of exceptional merit. Girmay is also the author of the collage-based picture book changing, changing, and the poetry collection Teeth, for which she was awarded a GCLA New Writers Award. She was born and raised in Southern California, with roots in Puerto Rico, Eritria, and African America. Girmay has taught youth writing workshops in schools and community centers for the past ten years, and is assistant professor of poetry writing at Hampshire College. Girmay also teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Drew University in New Jersey, and is a Cave Canem Fellow and an Acentos board member.

photo by UN Photo

Wynton Marsalis and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the Direction of Seiji Ozawa on the French Radio Station Mezzo by Dariusz Sosnicki

Read by Eric Reznyak

Airs Thursday, April 24

Dariusz Sosnicki (born in 1969 in Kalisz) is a poet, essayist and editor. He graduated from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan with a degree in Philosophy. Sosnicki was co-editor of the art-zine Juz Jest Jutro (1991–1994) and co-founder and co-editor of the influential Polish literary biweekly Nowy Nurt (1994–1996). In 1994 he published the collection of poems Marlewo, which received the best first book award from the magazine Czas Kultury. In 2001, he participated in International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Next year, his fourth collection of poems Symmetry was shortlisted for “Polityka” Passport and received the New Books Review Prize. His poems and literary essays have been published in many magazines and anthologies, in both Polish and in translation. Since 2005 he has been working at W.A.B. Publishing House as an editor of Polish contemporary fiction. He lives in Poznan.

photo by Stack Exchange Image

Goodbyes by Jillian Weise

Read by Jonathan Everitt

Airs Friday, April 25

Jillian Weise is the author of The Amputee’s Guide to Sex (Soft Skull Press, 2007) and The Colony (Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press, 2010). Her poem “Incision” was selected for Poetry Everywhere, the short film series produced by PBS and the Poetry Foundation. Her work has appeared in A Public Space, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Tin House and the anthology Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability. She studied at Florida State University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the University of Cincinnati. She traveled to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina on a Fulbright Fellowship, and spent two years as a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She teaches at Clemson and co-directs the Annual Clemson Literary Festival.

Flickr photo by Toni Blay