Saturday, March 16, 2013


The Burning Chair Readings
presents

An Ozark Small-Press Poetry Festival

celebrating newly-released issues of two Fayetteville-based hand-bound literary journals

Cannibal

        &
Bestoned: The New Metaphysick

featuring readings by



Thomas Andes
Kaveh Bassiri
Anselm Berrigan
Joseph Bradshaw
Sarah Boyer
Lily Brown
Cody-Rose Clevidence
Phil Cordelli
Tim Earley
C. Violet Eaton
Farrah Field
Graham Foust
Whit Griffin
Matthew Henriksen
Ryan Mitchell
Katie Nichol
Sara Nicholson
Laura Solomon
Eszter Takacs
Tim Van Dyke
Jared White

April 26 & 27, 7-10 pm
Nightbird Books
205 West Dickson Street
Fayetteville, Arkansas


with a dance party following the Friday reading
featuring DJ EJ and hosted by Katy Henriksen
https://soundcloud.com/dj-ej-kxua

The event is free, with support from Art Amiss and Nightbird Books.  Copies of Cannibal #6 and Bestoned: The New Metaphysick #1 will be available for purchase along with the readers’ books at the events.  Or visit the journals online at flesheatingpoems.blogspot.com and bestonedmagazine.com.

Find our Facebook event page at https://www.facebook.com/events/133347926844797.

The Burning Chair Readings, founded by Katy and Matthew Henriksen in New York City in 2004, have organized regular and special literary events in several cities and now call Nightbird Books and Fayetteville, Arkansas home.  Readings feature poets of emerging talent and established reputation from Fayetteville and across the country.  For complete event listings and author information, visit burningchair.blogspot.com.

Tom Andes’ writing has appeared or is forthcoming in News from the Republic of Letters, Santa Clara Review, Housefire, Spork, Mantis, Bateau, Harp and Altar3:AM Magazine, elimae, Pif, Everyday Genius, and the Rumpus, among other publications. A hand-sewn chapbook, “Life Before the Storm and Other Stories,” appeared in a limited run from Cannibal Books in 2010. His story “The Hit,” which first appeared in Xavier Review, was recently anthologized in Best American Mystery Stories 2012.  He lives New Orleans.

Kaveh Bassiri’s poetry won the Bellingham Review’s 49th Parallel Award and is published in Best New Poets 2011Virginia Quarterly ReviewBeloit Poetry Journal, and Mississippi Review.

Anselm Berrigan’s books include Notes from Irrelevance (Wave), Free Cell (City Lights), and Zero Star Hotel (Edge). He is working on a chapbook, “Sure Shot,” due out later this spring from the Brooklyn based press Overpass. A long somewhat screwed up poem titled Primitive State will be published as a book by Edge books some time down the road. He is the Poetry Editor for The Brooklyn Rail (brooklynrail.org), former Artistic Director of The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, and co-editor of The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan. He lives in New York City, where he grew up, and juggles teaching jobs and odd writing gigs for a living. 

Sarah Boyer is originally from South Dakota but not lives in Denver, CO.

Joseph Bradshaw started writing poetry when a friend lent him Leslie Scalapino’s The Front Matter, Dead Souls. In 2011 Shearsman published his book In the Common Dream of George Oppen.  His new work is in new issues of Elective Affinities, Cannibal, Aufgabe, Bright Pink MosquitoSink Review, and James Yeary’s c_L newsletter. Chapbooks are forthcoming from Potlatch Discordian Network and Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs.

Lily Brown is the author of Rust or Go Missing, published by Cleveland State University Poetry Center in 2011. Recent poems are out or forthcoming soon in Gulf Coast, Jubilat, Aesthetix, Saltgrass, and The Offending Adam. She is from Massachusetts and currently lives in Athens, GA, where she is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Georgia. 

Cody-Rose Clevidence lives in Arkansas sometimes.  You can find their little silver chapbook book “everything that is beautiful is edible” from flowers & cream press and later, beast feast from ahsahta (2014).

Phil Cordelli, former smoker, tentatively. Resident-at-large of Denver, CO, newly. Farmer, spearfisher, Kingfisher. Taj Mahal. Trike by Bob Log. What We Do by Doo Rag. 1994 Toad’s Place New Haven CT. Former CT MA NY CA ME. Manual of Woody Plants, Ugly Duck, soon. Soon for you.

Tim Earley is the author of two collections of poems, Boondoggle (Main Street Rag, 2005) and The Spooking of Mavens (Cracked Slab Books, 2010). His work has appeared in Chicago Review, jubilat, Colorado Review, Cannibal, New Orleans Review, Conduit, Bestoned, and many other journals and anthologies. A limited edition chapbook, “Catfish Poems,” is forthcoming later this year from Delete Press. The recipient of two Writing Fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, he teaches at the University of Mississippi and in the Fine Arts Work Center’s Online Writing Program.

C. Violet Eaton is the editor of Bestoned, a journal of new metaphysical verse. As Dowser, he occasionally dispatches small editions of ‘hill drone’ recordings from Arkansas, where he also sells used & rare books.

Farrah Field is the author of two books of poetry: Rising (2009) and Wolf and Pilot (2012), both published by Four Way Books. She is also the author of the chapbook “Parents” (2011) from Immaculate Disciples Press and her poems were selected by Kevin Young for The Best American Poetry 2011.  Farrah and Jared White are together the owners of a small press bookstore, Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop, co-curators of an event series, Yardmeter Editions, and parents of a baby, Roman Field White.

Graham Foust is the author of five books of poetry, the most recent of which is To Anacreon in Heaven and Other Poems.  His poems, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in The Nation, ConjunctionsTriQuarterlyPloughsharesBoston ReviewAmerican Letters and CommentaryA Public SpaceGulf CoastNew Ohio ReviewVerseFence, and many other publications.  With Samuel Frederick, he has translated three books by the late German poet Ernst Meister, including In Time’s Rift, which was published in the fall of 2012.  He works at the University of Denver. 

Whit Griffin is the author of Pentateuch (Skysill, 2010) and The Sixth Great Extinction (Skysill, 2012).  His third collection, A Far-Shining Crystal, is forthcoming from Cultural Society.  Recent poems are forthcoming in Brawling PigeonBoog City and LUNGFULL!. Along with Andrew Hughes he edits Bright Pink Mosquito.  He lives in Memphis.

Matthew Henriksen’s first book, Ordinary Sun, emerged from Black Ocean in 2010.  He edited a feature of Frank Stanford’s previously unpublished poems and fiction in Fulcrum #7 and hosted the Frank Stanford Literary Festival in Fayetteville in 2008.  He co-edits Typo, an online poetry journal, and, with his wife, Katy Henriksen, founded The Burning Chair Readings and Cannibal when living in Brooklyn.  He currently sells used books at the Dickson Street Bookshop.

Ryan Mitchell lives in New Orleans, yet the Ozark Mountains remain her home. She is excited to be published in Cannibal among other Ozark poets. She currently works for The New Orleans Review as Editor’s Assistant. Her work has appeared in New Orleans’ Review’s online site, and in Otis Nebula.

Katie Nichol is a fourth-year student in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas. She really likes to bake cakes. 

Sara Nicholson’s poems can be found in Cannibal and Bestoned: The New Metaphysick. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives not on a mountain in, but in the mountains of, Arkansas.

Laura Solomon’s books include Bivouac (Slope Editions, 2002), Blue and Red Things (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007), and The Hermit (UDP, 2011). Other publications include a chapbook, “Letters by which Sisters Will Know Brothers” (KatalanchĂ© Press 2005) and “Haiku des Pierres / Haiku of Stones” by Jacques Poullaoueq, a translation from the French with Sika Fakambi (Editions ApogĂ©e, 2006). In 2010, she was invited to Slovenia’s international poetry festival, Days of Poetry & Wine, and last year was a recipient of an award from the Fund for Poetry. She has lived recently in Paris, Philadelphia, and Verona, Italy, but currently may be found in Athens, Georgia, where she performs with the band pacificUV, whose new album After The Dream You Are Awake will be released this May from Mazarine Records. 

Eszter Takacs is a Hungarian-born poet. Her poems have appeared in Full of Crow, elimae, ILK Poetry, Birdfeast, Mixed FruitBarn Owl Review, DIAGRAM, and Phoebe.  She is currently an MFA candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, to where she recently relocated from Los Angeles. She also plays the flute and fiddles with cameras.

Tim Van Dyke grew up in Colombia, South America, until guerilla warfare forced him back to the United States. Since then, he has worked in several insane asylums. In 2011, Lavender Ink published his first book, Topographies Drawn with a Divine Chain of Birds, and he has a chapbook, “Fugue Engine,” published by Cannibal Books.  He also recently published an e-book, Light on the Lion's Face: A Reading of Baudrillard’s Seduction, with Argotist.  His work has appeared in Fascicle, Typo, Octopus Magazine, 9th Street Laboratories, and elsewhere.

Jared White is the author of two chapbooks, “Yellowcake,” published by Cannibal Books in 2009, and “This Is What It Is Like to Be Loved by Me,” just published by Bloof Books this March. A third chapbook, “My Former Politics,” is forthcoming from H-NGM-N Books. His poems and other writings have appeared in Harp & Altar, Sink Review, and We Are So Happy To Know Something. Jared and Farrah Field are together the owners of a small press bookstore, Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop, co-curators of an event series, Yardmeter Editions, and parents of a baby, Roman Field White.

Saturday, March 02, 2013

The Burning Chair Readings 
presents

 a book (+ book) release event
 featuring a poetry reading by

 Michael Heffernan 

author of

Walking Distance
Lost Horse Press, March 2013

      &

The Breaking of the Day 
Salmon Poetry, September 2012 

Saturday, March 16, 8 pm 
Nightbird Books 
205 West Dickson Street Fayetteville, Arkansas
FREE!

The Burning Chair Readings, founded by Katy and Matthew Henriksen in New York City in 2004, have organized regular and special literary events in several cities and now call Nightbird Books and Fayetteville, Arkansas home. Readings feature poets of emerging talent and established reputation from Fayetteville and across the country.

Author Bio 
Walking Distance is Michael Heffernan’s eleventh book of poems. His previous titles include The Cry of Oliver Hardy (University of Georgia, 1979; reprint 2007), To the Wreakers of Havoc (Georgia, 1984), The Man at Home (University of Arkansas, 1988), Love’s Answer (Iowa Poetry Prize, 1994), The Night Breeze Off the Ocean (Eastern Washington, 2005), The Odor of Sanctity (Salmon, 2008), At the Bureau of Divine Music (Wayne State University Press, 2011) and The Breaking of the Day (Salmon, 2012). He was born in Detroit in 1942, educated at the University of Detroit and the University of Massachusetts, and has taught poetry in Michigan, Kansas, Washington, Ireland, and, since 1986, at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. His work has been awarded three fellowships from the National Endowment for the arts. He and his wife, Ann, have three sons, a daughter, and a grandson.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Briante, Greenstreet, & Matuk (2/16/13)

The Burning Chair Readings

presents

poetry readings by

Susan Briante
Kate Greenstreet
Farid Matuk

Saturday, February 16, 8 pm


Nightbird Books
205 West Dickson Street
Fayetteville, Arkansas
FREE!

The Burning Chair Readings, founded by Katy and Matthew Henriksen in New York City in 2004, have organized regular and special literary events in several cities and now call Nightbird Books and Fayetteville, Arkansas home.  Readings feature poets of emerging talent and established reputation from Fayetteville and across the country.

Author Bios

Susan Briante is the author of Pioneers in the Study of Motion (2007) and Utopia Minus (2011) both published by Ahsahta Press, as well as the chapbook, The Market is a Parasite that Looks like a Nest (Dancing Girl Press). She is finishing work on a manuscript, begun at the dawn of what has been called the “current economic crisis,” entitled The Market Wonders. She lives in east Dallas.



Kate Greenstreet’s new book Young Tambling will be out in January from Ahsahta Press. Her other books are case sensitive and The Last 4 Things, also with Ahsahta. Her poetry can be found in Colorado Review, Boston Review, Volt, Fence, Chicago Review, and other journals.  She is currently living in Ireland with her husband, Max.



Farid Matuk is the author of This Isa Nice Neighborhood (Letter Machine, 2010), which was awarded honorable mention in the 2011 Arab American Book Award, named finalist for the Norma Farber First Book Award, and chosen by Geoffrey G. O'Brien for the Poetry Society of America's New American Poets series.  New poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Iowa ReviewCritical QuarterlyWhite Wall Review, and Poets.org.   Matuk is a contributor to Scubadivers and Chrysanthemums:  Essays on the Poetry of Araki Yasusada (Shearsman, 2011), American Odysseys:  Writings by New Americans (Dalkey Archive, 2013), and Beyond the Field (Counterparth, 2014).




Local Poet Fest, Volume Two, Issue One (1/26/13)


The Burning Chair Readings

presents

Local Poet Fest

Issue Two, Volume One

with short readings by seven local poets

Kaveh Bassiri
J. Camp Brown
Rachel Burrows
Joshua Dickens
Laura Gray
Pam Hitchcock
Eszter Takacs

Saturday, January 26

Nightbird Books
205 West Dickson Street
Fayetteville, Arkansas

We suggest attendees bring a $3 donation to help support the venue and costs for the upcoming Bestoned/Cannibal Festival in April.

Come celebrate locally-grown poetry of diverse styles in a laid-back atmosphere.  Beverages with and without alcohol will be available for purchase.

The Burning Chair Readings, founded by Katy and Matthew Henriksen in New York City in 2004, have organized regular and special literary events in several cities and now call Nightbird Books and Fayetteville, Arkansas home.  Look for future monthly readings at Nightbird Books that will bring some of the most exciting emerging poets to share their work here in Fayetteville.

Kaveh Bassiri’s poetry won the Bellingham Review’s 49th Parallel Award and is published in Best New Poets 2011Virginia Quarterly ReviewBeloit Poetry Journal, and Mississippi Review.

J. Camp Brown plays bluegrass mandolin and sings high tenor.  He is a 2012 Arkansas Arts Council Fellow and was a finalist for the 2012 Ruth Lilly Fellowship.  His poems have appeared in Juked, Nashville Review, and Prick of the Spindle.

Rachel Burrows is an Ozarks native. She has a BA in English language and literature with a focus in creative writing from UAFS. 

Joshua Dickens discovered his love for poetry by sheer providence.  After several attempts, he finished his BA in History at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith and during his time there, he managed to get a few poems published.  He lives in Van Buren with his wife Rebecca and daughter Zoe Jane.  He is an amateur Medievalist, a great project starter and a so-so fisherman.

Laura Gray grew up in Scottsboro, Alabama.  She writes poetry and fiction, and studied writing at the U of A.  She currently teaches in the English Department.

Pamela Hitchcock is a non-traditional student at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where she studies German and creative writing.  She has lived in Eureka Springs since 1987.

Eszter Takacs is a Hungarian-born poet. Her poems have appeared in Full of Crow, elimae, ILK Poetry, Birdfeast, and Mixed Fruit.  Additionally, she has poems forthcoming in Barn Owl Review, DIAGRAM, and Phoebe.  She is currently an MFA candidate and Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, to where she recently relocated from Los Angeles. She also plays the flute and fiddles with cameras.