Anhinga Press celebrates the book release of Caronae Howell, author of “Index for September 11th,” winner of the 2019 Anhinga-Robert Dana Prize for Poetry, release date April 10. And Terese Svoboda, author of “Theatrix: Poetry Plays” released March 10, 2021, Anhinga Press. Each poet will read from their books and there will be time for questions after the reading.
CARONAE HOWELL is a physician and writer living and working in Arizona with her husband and dog. She studied history and human rights at Columbia University and received her medical doctorate from Stony Brook University School of Medicine. Her poetry and essays have been published in a variety of local and national anthologies and The New York Times. She is currently training to become a vascular surgeon. She is particularly interested in the intersections between poetry, surgery, and the human body.
TERESE SVOBODA
Borrowing from Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, and absurdist theater in equal measure, Theatrix: Poetry Plays is a tour de force collection that explodes our notion of the fourth wall to include deconstructionist, experimental poetics and the vernacular (from trigger warnings to congressional hearings) of our times. Whether imagining a "skein of scenes" between amorous cutlery, or "States of Information War," Svoboda defies all authoritarian structures (paternal, religious, directorial) through a daring performative text that excavates the very "root of spectacle" -- spectators, and readers, themselves. In a staged world where "even the building is burning," and the various forms of perspectival chaos include the pov of blood, how can any dramatic representation cohere? Svoboda offers not an answer but a challenge: to think "the unthinkable." Not since Beckett has an existential soliloquy defined the task before us with such bravura: the way forward is brilliantly, bracingly clear. —Virginia Konchan, author of Any God Will Do
