Poetry Reading and Launch Party: Ascent and Surrounded by Friends with Matt Bialer and Matthew Rohrer

For more information, please call 718-801-8375

RSVP appreciated: RSVP@POWERHOUSEon8th.com

Join poets Matt Bialer and Matthew Rohrer at the powerHouse on 8th and experience the fruits of two distinct voices, one narrative epic, the other reveling in singular and poignant moments.

About Ascent:

“Matthew Bialer’s epic historical, lyrically explosive, narrative poem, Ascent, is about what happens when ‘a flash of light’ hits the town of Van Meter is immediately generative.  That is, it generates speed and tenderness and devotion — to a vision, Bialer’s vision — which is superlative and, ultimately, generous.  This poem is a gift of the imagination rooted in ‘a happening’ – a creature, a creature! – because Bialer has figured out his own way of telling a story through poetry.  His cadences coupled with his imagery allow the reader to be swallowed up completely.  This poem is a visitation in as much as ‘the creature’ that visited Van Meter in 1903 was a visitation.  The difference, though, is that Bialer’s poem is about the beauty that comes with mystery and not the fear that can take hold when something unknown enters the psyche, the field of what is and what is not.   Whatever you do, hold your breath, take your time, and become swept up in Bialer’s illumination and brilliance.” –Matthew Lippman, author of Monkey Bars and Salami Jew.

About Surrounded by Friends:

“Rohrer’s frequently beautiful, brief poems are rooted in specific images that initially seem unrelated—but which ultimately form a unity as meditations on how the ordinary distractions of everyday life can be seen as the source for almost everything important in life.”—Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly

The poems in Matthew Rohrer’s seventh poetry collection are generated by, and embrace, friendships with the living, the dead, and the inanimate. Friends, family, and the urban peoplescape are gathered together in these poems, with more and more poetic voices joining in, and ending with poems written “in collaboration” with Kobayashi Issa, Yosa Buson, Matsuo Basho, and Hafiz.

About the Poets:

Matt Bialer is the author of 9 collections of poetry including Radius, Already Here, Ark, Black Powder, Tell Them What I Saw. Bridge, He Walks on All Fours and Kings of Men.  His poems have appeared in many print and online journals including Le Zaporogue, Green Mountains Review, Gobbet, Forklift Ohio and H_NGM_N.   In addition, Matt is an acclaimed black and white street photographer who has exhibited his work widely. Some of his images are in the permanent collections of The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of the City of New York and The New York Public Library.

Matthew Rohrer is the author of Surrounded by Friends, Destroyer and Preserver, A Plate of Chicken, Rise Up and A Green Light, which was shortlisted for the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize. He is also the author of Satellite, and co-author, with Joshua Beckman, of Nice Hat. Thanks., and the audio CD Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He has appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered and The Next Big Thing. His first book, A Hummock in the Malookas was selected for the National Poetry Series by Mary Oliver in 1994.