Braving the Body Anthology Reading—Westchester Launch

Join editors Nicole Callihan, Chenda Bao & Jennifer Franklin as they welcome a group of poets to read their poem and another poem of their choice from Braving the Body (Harbor Editions, 2024). Poets scheduled to read include: Iain Haley Pollock, Jared Harel, Nicole Cooley, Caitlin McDonnell, Lynn McGee, Sara Wallace, Ben Grossberg, Emily Hockaday, Karen Hildebrand, & Michael Tyrell.

They will read work by: Ellen Bass, Diane Seuss, Fred Marchant, Michael Lally, Jessica Jacobs, Rebecca Lindenberg, Liza Katz Dincan, Joanna Solfrain, Justin Wymer, Caridad Moro-Gronlier, among others.

It is only through the body that we receive images, and mostly through the images that we receive poems. Braving the Body is a collection of these fierce images; of 116 bodies; of, as Whitman writes in Leaves of Grass, “head, neck, hair, ears . . . mouth, tongue, lips . . . bowels sweet and clean . . . brain in its folds inside the skull frame . . . heart valves”; of Liza Katz Duncan’s 10-week pregnant body driving south; of Diane Seuss’s hair “the color of a field mouse” and Justin Wymer’s “pill the color of her hair”; of the cast made of Drew Skelton’s teeth; the discarded membranes of Fia Montero’s “Diastasis Recti Abdominis”; the imagined daffodils planted by “our children’s children” of Ann Fisher-Wirth’s final consummation with her beloved. Absurd, sublime, anxious, and tender—these poems resonate in the very place they were born—the brave body in all its gore and glory.

Blurbs for Braving the Body:

Braving the Body, an astonishing new anthology edited by Nicole Callihan, Pichchenda Bao, and Jennifer Franklin, reminds us that to brave the body one must survive it.  Or transgress it. Or claim it radically. “Give me a live girl, a mess,” begs KC Trommer, “one with a mouth for talking,” and we’re reminded of all that constructs the body, making it more than simply flesh and bone and organs. Braving the Body reimagines the body as “factory,” as grateful objectness, as aspirational and asking, “How did Jesus keep / his girlish figure?” After these 116 poems—at times achingly visceral, at others necessarily light-filled—you’ll wonder how you ever thought a body was a thing you knew.

—Dawn Lundy Martin, author of Good Stock Strange Blood

I refuse to believe the poems in Braving the Body haven’t been gathering together for years, tuning up and practicing in some secret lair: that’s how perfectly their voices combine, creating a layered composition that examines the human body in all of its riches, losses, temptations, and possibilities. Looking for jaw-drop images and wry formal turns? You’ll find them. Want to laugh, shiver, or nod in recognition? You will. But this anthology’s power resides not just in the individual poet, but the collective call to action that we must speak, more openly, about these experiences within our perfectly imperfect, obscenely blessed, blessedly obscene, and endangered selves. Harmony is great, but so is raising a ruckus. This book does both.

—Sandra Beasley, author of Made to Explode

This anthology includes poems by:

JESSICA ABUGHATTAS
KIM ADDONIZIO
KELLI RUSSELL AGODON
LISA ANDREWS
SUBHAGA CRYSTAL BACON
CHRISTOPHER BAKKEN
MARY JO BANG
ELLEN BASS
JEFFREY BEAN
JAN BEATTY
ALLISON BLEVINS
MARINA BLITSHTEYN
DUSTIN BROOKSHIRE
ELENA KARINA BYRNE
LAUREN CAMP
BRENDA CÁRDENAS
ROBERT CARR
EILEEN CLEARY
SUZANNE CLEARY
NADIA COLBURN
MARTHA COLLINS
NICOLE COOLEY
JESSICA CUELLO
JA’NET DANIELO
JULIA KOLCHINSKY DASBACH
PATRICK DONNELLY
CAROL DORF
LIZA KATZ DUNCAN
IRIS JAMAHL DUNKLE
KATHY FAGAN
ANN FISHER-WIRTH
EMILY FRANKLIN
KAREN FRIEDLAND
SUZANNE FRISCHKORN
CMARIE FUHRMAN
JEANNINE HALL GAILEY
SONIA GREENFIELD
DAVID GROFF
BENJAMIN S. GROSSBERG
JARED HARÉL
DENNIS HINRICHSEN
CAMILLE HERNANDEZ
KAREN HILDEBRAND
EMILY HOCKADAY
ANDREA HOLLANDER
JP HOWARD
JESSICA JACOBS
MARA JEBSEN
MELISSA FITE JOHNSON
PATRICIA SPEARS JONES
JEN KARETNICK
MEG KEARNEY
HYEJUNG KOOK
MICHAEL LALLY
LANCE LARSEN
VIOLA LEE
EUGENIA LEIGH
REBECCA LINDENBERG
MATTHEW LIPPMAN
MARGAREE LITTLE
MIA AYUMI MALHOTRA
CHRISTINE MALVASI
CYNTHIA MANICK
FRED MARCHANT
JENNIFER MARTELLI
GAIL MARTIN
TRAPETA B. MAYSON
CAITLIN GRACE MCDONNELL
LYNN MCGEE
ERIKA MEITNER
JENNIFER MILITELLO
SAMANTHA MOE
FIA MONTERO
CARIDAD MORO-GRONLIER
MARY MORRIS
ALICIA REBECCA MYERS
RACHEL NEVE-MIDBAR
JOSHUA NGUYEN
REBECCA HART OLANDER
LISA OLSTEIN
ALIXEN PHAM
MAYA PINDYCK
IAIN HALEY POLLOCK
CONNIE POST
VIVIAN FAITH PRESCOTT
ROBIN REAGLER
SUSAN RICH
MICHAEL ROBINS
ANNA V. Q. ROSS
CHRISTOPHER SALERNO
HAYDEN SAUNIER
DIANE SEUSS
JACKIE SHERBOW
BETSY SHOLL
DARA-LYN SHRAGER
NOEL SIKORSKI
DREW SKELTON
MONICA SOK
JOANNA SOLFRIAN
DONNA SPRUIJT-METZ
HEATHER SWAN
KELLY GRACE THOMAS
LYNNE THOMPSON
MICHAEL TYRELL
LEAH UMANSKY
BARBARA UNGAR
LEE UPTON
SARA WALLACE
JESSICA L. WALSH
PATRICIA J. WENTZEL
ZOË RYDER WHITE
REN WILDING
MARIANNE WORTHINGTON
JUSTIN WYMER