Poet(s) currently taking questions: None.

Archives:

Recent Media

R.A. Villanueva, Smartish Pace Reading

R.A. Villanueva reading for the Smartish Pace Issue 18 party at Cyclops in Baltimore on May 6, 2011. Introduction by SP Intern Austin Tally.

Recent Interview

Interview with Lia Purpura

Laura Klebanow: It seems you came to write poetry first, and prose poetry and essays next. Is this correct, or has your work in each genre developed less compartmentally? For example, do you ever start a poem and watch it become a prose poem or essay, or vice versa?Lia Purpura: The issue of how one discernible genre grows from another is utterly mysterious to me. I’m certain that I’m writing prose, though my essays are called “lyric essays.” In fact, I’ve just written an essay titled “What is a Lyric Essay?” for Seneca Review. In it, I’m making a plea for allowing the form to remain as mysterious as possible. I do mean “mysterious” though in the best way – challenging and magical and able to work on a reader and knit up above the page. I don’t mean at all “unclear” or “sloppy”. The language ought to be as precise as possible in order to affect the most unlikely moves. When I’m writing, an impulse makes itself known as a prose itch or poem-itch. Some failed poems have extended out into prose and found their musculature that way. I don’t think a derailed essay has ever turned ... [ read more ]

Upcoming Events

Issue 20 Readings!

9/1/2013 (7:00pm) -- (8:00pm)

Baltimore, New York, Raleigh, Austin, Virgin Islands

We will have Smartish Pace Issue 20 readings in Baltimore (TBA), New York City (KGB Bar), Raleigh (Contemporary Art Museum), Austin (TBA) and Virgin Islands (TBA).

Dates to be announced here throughout the year.

Recent Review

Earthly Meditations: New and Selected Poems

The poet inclined to write about the family dog had better manipulate language like a MOMIX contortionist or offer the truly unexpected if he hopes to create great poetry – and Robert Wrigley does. From the stolid boy who knows his dog is as good as dead when the farmer arrives with a gutted chicken to the quiver of the dog’s ears as the girl holds him down and commands the pet to say he ... [ read more ]