12 or 20 (second series) questions with Shira Dentz
Shira Dentz [photo credit: Ellen Maddick] is the author of three full-length books, black seeds on a white dish (Shearsman), door of thin skins (CavanKerry), and how do i net thee (Salmon Poetry, forthcoming, 2018), and two chapbooks, Leaf Weather (Shearsman), and FLOUNDERS (Essay Press). Her books have been reviewed in many venues including American Book Review, Rain Taxi, and Boston Review, and interviews with her have appeared in journals including Ploughshares, The Rumpus, and OmniVerse.
Her writing has appeared widely in journals including Poetry, The American Poetry Review, The Iowa Review, New American Writing, Entropy, Brooklyn Rail, andWestern Humanities Review, and featured at The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, NPR, Poetry Daily, and Verse Daily. She is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets’ Prize, the Poetry Society of America’s Lyric Poem and Cecil Hemley Memorial Awards, Electronic Poetry Review’s Discovery Award, and Painted Bride Quarterly’s Poetry Prize.
A graduate of the Iowa Writers‘ Workshop, she has a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Utah. Shira was Drunken Boat‘s Reviews Editor from 2011-2016, and is now Special Features Editor at Tarpaulin Sky, and teaches creative writing at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. More about her writing can be found at shiradentz.com.
1 – How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I don’t know that the publication of my first book changed my life, except that I certainly was no longer eligible to submit to first book poetry contests. As Francis Picabia wrote, “our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction.”
2 – How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I’m not sure that I came to poetry first, or even that it came to me first. When I was seven, I made a pact to try to be a writer, and when I became a teenager, I decided it was time to start work on this (even in my imagination there was a felt time for initiation?). My first piece happened to be a poem in response to a poem that I felt angry at in Seventeen magazine. This being said, most of my life I referred to myself as a writer, not a poet, as I didn’t really differentiate // there’s poetry in all genres. In fact, I practiced as a visual artist too and “artist” is a term that I still go back and forth with. Now that I write a lot of hybrid stuff, I say that I’m “mostly a poet”—go figure. [Read more…]
Shira Dentz’s Prose Poems Featured in Entropy Magazine
CavanKerry Press author, Shira Dentz’s prose poems, “Upstate New York Gray (No. 1)” and “Upstate New York Gray (No.2),” are featured in Entropy Magazine’s Sunday “On Weather” Series.
Head over to entropymag.org to read Shira’s featured poems.
Shira Dentz Reading & Book Signing
CavanKerry Press author Shira Dentz will be at Bascom Lodge in North Adams, MA from 6pm – 7pm on June 11, 2017.
Shira Dentz is the author of three full-length books, black seeds on a white dish (Shearsman), door of thin skins (CavanKerry), and how do i net thee (Salmon Poetry, forthcoming 2018), and two chapbooks, Leaf Weather (Shearsman), and FLOUNDERS (Essay Press).
Kathline Carr, writer and visual artist, is the author of Miraculum Monstrum, forthcoming from Red Hen Press and winner of the 2015 Clarissa Dalloway Book Prize. Carr’s writing and art have appeared in Yew Journal, Entropy, Alexandria Quarterly, Calyx, Connecticut Review, and elsewhere.
The book reading will take place from 6pm – 7pm at Bascom Lodge, North Adams, MA.
The reading and book signing is FREE and open to the public. Directions and additional info can be found on Bascom Lodge.
A Reading with Shira Dentz
“Visual Poetry” from CKP Author Shira Dentz Featured in Poetry Magazine
CavanKerry Press author Shira Dentz is featured in the December 2016 issue of Poetry Magazine.
Check out the visual poetry called “Scale” by Shira Dentz here.
Shira Dentz is also the author of “door of thin skins” release by CavanKerry Press. Door of Thin Skins, a hybrid collection of poetry and prose, deconstructs the nature of psychological power through the deconstruction of traditional narrative and language.
News and Events: Week of October 3rd
Events
Jack Ridl, The Lost Lake Writers Retreat (Alpena, MI)
October 6-9
Jack will be joining Dorianne Laux, Kelly Forden, and Irina Reyn at The Lost Lake Writers Retreat
Shira Dentz, The Seligmann Center (Chester, NY)
Sunday October 9th at 2pm
Shira will be a featured reader
News
Sarah Sousa launched a mini lit mag which is delivered via the Tinyletter platform to subscribers’ inboxes every Wednesday. Subscription is free.
To subscribe: https://tinyletter.com/QueenofCups
Submission info: https://sarahasousa.com/queen-of-cups/
News and Events: Week of September 26th
Events
Wanda S. Praisner, Mercer County Community College, Student Center room 104 (1200 Old Trenton Road, West Windsor, NJ)
Thursday, September 29th, reception at 6:30pm/reading at 7pm
Launch Reading of The Kelsey Review
Sarah Bracey White, Scarborough Presbyterian Church (Scarborough, NY)
Saturday, October 1st at 6 pm
There will be a Primary Lessons exhibit at the Baker/Collyer annual Christmas fundraiser “Art, Literature and Music of the Hudson Valley”
News
BOA Editions announced that Christian Barter’s forthcoming book, Bye-bye Land, has won the Isabella Gardner Award; it will be published by them in 2017.
Shira Dentz’s “blue [belewe] moon” appears in the new poetry & prose anthology,
The Careless Embrace of the Boneshaker
Shira Dentz’s “door of thin skins” in zoran rosko vacuum player
Plunges into the visceral, the sensual, are indispensable anchors in Dentz’s text. Sight—and not just sight, but visual texture—engages you at a bodily level.
Read more at zoran rosko vacuum player
Shira Dentz's "Flounders" from Essay Press
In this work, I engage with notions of form and beauty that I, as an artist and a social being, have inherited and tacitly acknowledge or actively work against.
Read more at Essay Press
Shira Dentz’s “Flounders” from Essay Press
In this work, I engage with notions of form and beauty that I, as an artist and a social being, have inherited and tacitly acknowledge or actively work against.
Read more at Essay Press
“door of thin skins” reviewed in Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction
This is not one of those books you read in order to find out what happened; knowing the end doesn’t spoil one single thing that comes before, because suspense about the plot is never the point. Surprise here comes from ways the narrator weaves the story, from the insights, images and sounds that emerge as she juxtaposes its elements, as we watch her
think about things he said. They run through my mind, a piece of yarn
unwinding so far until gnarled at a knot. I sit and ponder the knot.
At the knot is a feeling. I try to loosen it.
I can’t know what was in his mind….
The way it was on the outside and the way it was on the inside.
I want to take myself for granted. (16)
–“Based on a True Story: Young Tambling by Kate Greenstreet and door of thin skins by Shira Dentz” by Holly Welker
Read the full piece here
Two poems from Shira Dentz
This poem is part of CavanKerry’s series for National Poetry Month. Every day in April, we post a poem from our community of writers.
Palm trees blowing, feathers
evening’s husk, palm
trees black.
can see
nothing
against
evening’s husk
but light
of after.
palm
trees
lolling light
of after. my sister, my sister, my
sister,
my
sister,
my sis
bird black
birds, pockets of air.
breeze sloping cotton. birds sloping calm. breeze alone percussive. alone more cotton. clouds lawn the luminous noon. field shadow.
a tittering, quite pretty
outside, rushing interior. luminous green cover, percussive. it’s the rushing feels beautiful
luminous distance, green time like clouds of solitude, the well interior. the air. calm. percussive. birds that’s air.,
clouds, being of the past, tittering
Both poems were previously published in 32 Poems
Shira Dentz is the author of three full-length books, black seeds on a white dish (Shearsman), door of thin skins (CavanKerry), and how do i net thee (forthcoming) and two chapbooks, Leaf Weather (Shearsman), and Flounders (Essay Press, released this month).
News and Events: Week of April 4th
Events
Sandra Castillo, West Dade Regional Library (9445 Coral Way, Miami, FL)
Tuesday, April 5, 6pm
Sandra will be reading from Eating Moors and Christians
Dawn Potter, University of Maine at Augusta (Augusta, ME)
April 8,2-5 pm; reading at 6:15 pm
Dawn is leading a workshop, “Magic Words,” for teachers, followed by a featured reading in the Plunkett Poetry Festival
Shira Dentz, Spotty Dog Books & Ale (440 Warren St, Hudson, NY)
Saturday, April 9th at 7pm
Volume Reading and Music Series presents Jenny Offill, Shira Dentz and Courtney Maum
News and Events: Week of March 7th
Events
Dawn Potter
Monday, March 7th at 8pm
Dawn is a featured guest on NCTE poetry group’s Twitter chat
Sarah Bracey White, Sumter County Public Library (Sumter, SC)
Saturday, March 12th at 2pm
Sarah will be at the Annual Local Authors’ Book Fair, exhibit and book signing
News
Carol Stone’s new book of poems, Late, was just published by Turning Point
Shira Dentz’s poems “Palm trees blowing, like feathers.” and “birds, pockets of air.” appear in 32 Poems Fall/Winter 2015
News and Events: Week of February 29th
Events
Wanda S. Praisner, West Caldwell Library (30 Clinton Rd., West Caldwell, NJ)
Saturday, March 5, 1-4pm
Wanda will be reading at Girl Talk: A Reading in Celebration of National Women’s History Month
Shira Dentz, Ada Books (717 Westminster S, Providence, RI)
Saturday, March 5 at 6pm
Shira will be reading with Camille Rankine, Ravi Shankar in Ada Books’ Publicly Complex Reading Series
Grab the Lapels reviews “door of thin skins”
This is the painful and unrelenting tale of Dr. Abe, psychologist and psychic vampire, and his patient/victim, a poet (poetess, he states sibilantly, beginning the process of her dismantling on their first meeting, page 3) who uses language as instinct, as tool and finally as weapon in this masterful textual project.
Read the full review at Grab the Lapel
News and Events: Week of September 28th
Events
Sarah Bracey White, Mainwright House (260 Stuyvesant Ave, Rye, NY)
Tuesday, September 29 at 3pm
Sarah will be talking about Primary Lessons in Mainwright House’s author series
Shira Dentz, Amherst Poetry Festival (James Tate Memorial Stage, Emily Dickinson Museum Grounds, Amherst, MA)
Saturday, October 3rd, 2:55pm
Shira is reading with Dara Wier, Ravi Shankar
News
Donald Platt’s poem “The Main Event” listed one of the Boston Reviews’ “Ten Poems and One Contributor’s Note You Should Strongly Consider Reading from The Best American Poetry 2015″
News and Events: Week of March 23rd
Events
Celia Bland and Shira Dentz, CalArts &Now Festival
Friday, March 27th at 2:30
Celia and Shira will be joined by Pauline Oliveros and Kathy High for “Blast Radius,” a discuss about the collaboration of poetry, music and video
Teresa Carson, Wanda Praisner, Sondra Gash, and Carole Stone, West Caldwell Library (30 Clinton Rd., West Caldwell, NJ)
Saturday, March 28, 1:00-4:00pm
Four CavanKerry writers will read at Girl Talk: A Reading in Celebration of National Women’s History Month
News and Events: Week of March 16th
News
Donald Platt’s poem “The Main Event” was awarded the Stover Prize from Southwest Review for the best poem published by that review in 2014. It will also be included in The Best American Poetry 2015 (Scribner).
Events
Shira Dentz and Celia Bland, The Arts Center
of the Capital Region (Troy, NY)
Sunday, March 22nd at 2pm
Shira and Celia are reading as part of A Poetic Spring: Five Upstate Poets Read from their Work
For Florenz: “Hands” by Shira Dentz
I would like to say that Florenz was the person at CKP with whom I had the most contact while my book was being made and I associate her presence with this book: her warmth, discernment, and enthusiasm were and still are very meaningful to me. My book was a vulnerable enterprise and Florenz’s place in it was and is part of its making.
-Shira Dentz
10. Hands
from door of thin skins
He splayed his fingers apart, their movement a Japanese pure, make-a-vacuum style, allowing them to twitch in all directions, implying cherry blossom petals dangling from boughs. He was a tall and fat man, his fingers incongruously refined, long and sculptural. Of course the fingertips flipped up. I say of course because even at rest he gave the impression that he covered everything; above and below.
How the very signal of that gesture enveloped to the point of obfuscating my senses. This is why it is nearly impossible to communicate, to hand over the experience.
He did it when he tried to make a point, but I tell you whenever he did it all I was aware of was the portrait he made with his hands. At their widest opening on their way down they were bird wings flapping—and the hole between the wings, where there should have been a body, was me.
News and Events: Week of November 10th
Events
Sarah Bracey White, Greenburgh Public Library, (Elmsford, NY)
Wednesday, November 12th at 12am
Book group talk
Monthly reading group discussing Primary Lessons
Click here for more info
Shira Dentz, Appalacian State University
Thursday, November 13th
The Hughlene Bostian Frank Visiting Writers Series: 2014-2015 Season
More info at App. State
Joseph O. Legaspi, The Astoria Bookshop (31-29 31st St., Astoria, Queens, NYC)
Saturday, November 15th at 7:00pm
Oh, Bernice! Reading Series with Sachi CLayton, Carissa Holdaway and Heben Nigatu
Visit Astoria Bookshop for more
The American Literary Review on “door of thin skins”
A smart, and often fearless,
discussion of the relationship between language and power.
Read more at American Literary Review
The American Literary Review on "door of thin skins"
A smart, and often fearless,
discussion of the relationship between language and power.
Read more at American Literary Review
News and Events: Week of September 28th
Events
Shira Dentz, Utah Humanities Festival, (15th Street Gallery, 1519 South 1500 East, Salt Lake City)
Thursday, October 2nd at 7pm
Shira will be reading from door of thin skins
For more info, visit Utah Humanities Festival
Baron Wormser, Brooks Memorial Library (224 Main Street, Brattleboro, Vermont)
Sunday, October 5, 11:00 a.m
Robert Frost Panel with Jay Parini and Donald Sheehy
For more info, visit Brooks Memorial Library
Events and News: Week of August 18th
Events
Baron Wormser, Greensboro Literary Festival (Greensboro, VT)
Tuesday, August 19th at 7 pm
More info at baronwormser.com
Celia Bland and Shira Dentz, The Golden Notebook (Woodstock, NY)
Saturday, August 23rd at 2pm
More info at The Golden Notebook
Salamander reviews “door of thin skins”
These lines are a relief, but are also an example of how layout and letters work together in this collection to recreate the experience of the speaker. The layout shows both the writer’s visual aptitude and her awareness of how music makes a world. It is this understanding of the sounds of silence, and the look of it, that elevates this collection from therapy to art.
Read the full review at Salamander
Salamander reviews "door of thin skins"
These lines are a relief, but are also an example of how layout and letters work together in this collection to recreate the experience of the speaker. The layout shows both the writer’s visual aptitude and her awareness of how music makes a world. It is this understanding of the sounds of silence, and the look of it, that elevates this collection from therapy to art.
Read the full review at Salamander
News and Events: Week of June 23rd
Events
Dawn Potter, Frost Place (Franconia, NH)
Wednesday, June 25, 7:30 p.m.
Dawn will be reading from her new collection Same Old Story
For more info, visit Frost Place
Kevin Carey, Eldredge Public Library (Chatham, MA)
Thursday, June 26 at 7pm
Kevin will be reading at the Voices of Poetry/By the Sea event
For more info, visit Eldredge Library
Shira Dentz, Good Purpose Gallery (40 Main Street, Lee, MA)
Thursday, June 26th at 5:30pm
Shira will be reading with Jessica Treat at Writers Read
For more info, visit Good Purpose Gallery
Carole Stone, Canio’s Book Store (Sag Harbor, NY)
Saturday, June 28 at 5pm
Carole will read from her two most recent books, American Rhapsody and Hurt, the Shadow, the Josephine Hopper Poems
For more info visit Canio’s Book Store
Celia Bland, Lesley Heller Workspace (New York, NY)
Saturday June 28, 4.30 pm. at the gallery.
Celia will discussing Madonna Comix “This music crept by me upon the waters…” which looks at collaborations between poets and artists, with a formal focus on the print medium
For more info, visit Lesley Heller
Chronogram Reviews “door of thin skins”
Chronogram Reviews "door of thin skins"
News and Events: Week of May 12th
Events
Wanda S. Praisner, County College of Morris (214 Center Grove Rd., Randolph, NJ)
Tuesday, May 13th at 7:30pm
Wanda will be joining other poets in celebrating 2014 Poets Prize winner Tina Kelley
Click here for more info
Shira Dentz, Farber-Minness Lounge, Schenectady JCC (2565 Balltown Road, Schenectady, NY)
Sunday, May 18th from 2pm-3pm
News and Events: Week of April 7th
Events
Shira Dentz, NYU Bookstore (726 Broadway, NY, NY)
Tuesday, April 8th, 6:30pm – 7:30pm
Poetry/Prose Reading with Shira Dentz, Sandy Florian, and Lucy Ives
Visit NYU Bookstore for more info
Dawn Potter, Plunkett Poetry Festival (University of Maine at Augusta)
Saturday, April 12th, 11:30 a.m.
Dawn will participate in a panel on poetry and education.
For more info visit University of Maine
News and Events: Week of March 31st
Events
Shira Dentz, Sage College (Troy, NYU
Tuesday, April 1st, 7pm
Shira will be on a panel on “Poetry and Community”
For more info visit Sage College
Shira Dentz, Ada Books (717 Westminster St., Providence)
Saturday, April 5th, 6pm
Shira will be reading with Sandy Florian
For more info visit Ada Books
CutBank reviews "door of thin skins"
This book shatters […] It complicates the label of confessional poetry or memoir with its formal agility and its conceptual demands of its reader. It is a welcome addition to those books that teach us how to read a poem and those that teach us how to translate and interpret trauma.
Read the full review at CutBank
CutBank reviews “door of thin skins”
This book shatters […] It complicates the label of confessional poetry or memoir with its formal agility and its conceptual demands of its reader. It is a welcome addition to those books that teach us how to read a poem and those that teach us how to translate and interpret trauma.
Read the full review at CutBank