Big news! My collection of new poems, Creature Sounds Fade, has been picked up by Black Lawrence Press from their 2018 Open Reading Period. It’s scheduled for July 2020.
At their request, I wrote a bit about the title and how the book came together:
Creature sounds is a term used by SFX designers: it can refer to any animal or monster sound. Growls, snarls, hisses, howls, and roars, but also smaller sounds like lip smacks, breathing, and wounded crying. Sound designers take snippets of real-world sound from one context, rework them, and recontextualize them for wholly different effects somewhere else.
I began gradually losing my hearing in my twenties due to a genetic condition, a fade that eventually necessitated hearing aids and other assistive technology, such as captioning. When I first got the aids, I realized how much I’d been missing. The blinker clacking in the car, a dog barking a block away, and especially birds. These things that had gradually faded from my experience were suddenly and beautifully back. I don’t remember now what movie I was watching, but when “[creature sounds fade]” appeared on the screen, I scrambled to write it down as a title. It also happens to describe some of my process—the poems often start with or incorporate snippets from elsewhere like this: a caption, a bit of overheard speech (especially something I’ve misheard), stray phrases from another text.
You can read the rest of the artist statement and three poems from the collection here.
I’m thrilled to be working with Diane Goettel at Black Lawrence on this new book. More about it as the date gets closer!