Flashes

Poetry. Reflections on the individual and community flash in this urban web of buildings, technology and news bits, where the "city" looms and the inhabitants submit. Bits and pieces of Abu Ghraib, the Iraq war and 9/11 will be recognized, along with 24/7 newscasters and U.S. political figures welded together as one gigantic talking head. Paranoid neighbors, fashion rags and Walmart also take the stage. A menacing yet cartoonish shark probes the waters, a projected sign of the times. Yet within this hyper-reality a desire weaves, searching for a place in which to land, "Unpoured like animals from the ark we became friendly / like old days, we offered each other liquid / put away green bills, undid our jackets / clustered."

Jennifer Firestone is the author of FLASHES (2012) and HOLIDAY (2008), both from Shearsman Books, and Waves, an investigation of death and "death- language" published by Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs in 2008. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including How2, FOURTEEN HILLS, 580 Split, Boog City, MIPOesias, Can We Have Our Ball Back, Dusie, and Moria. She is also co-editor, with Dana Teen Lomax, of the anthology LETTERS TO POETS: CONVERSATIONS ABOUT POETICS, POLITICS, AND COMMUNITY, published by Saturnalia Books in Fall 2008. The recipient of grant-supported writing residencies at the Ragdale Foundation, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center, Jennifer lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their young twins. She is Poet in Residence at Eugene Lang College at the New School University.