Poet | Fiction Writer | Critic | Editor
Gerry LaFemina is the author of several chapbooks, four full length collections of
poetry, a collection of prose poems, numerous published stories, essays and
poems, and is co-translator with Sinan Toprak of Voice Lock Puppet, poems by
contemporary Turkish poet Ali Yuce. He's also co-editor of two anthologies: Poetry
30 (with Daniel Crocker) and Evensong (with Chad Prevost) and of review revue, a
tabloid tri-quarterly focusing on reviews of poetry books, interviews with poets
and prosody essays.
A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, LaFemina holds an MFA in Poetry from
Western Michigan University as well as an MA in Literature with an emphasis on
Twentieth-century Literature from WMU. He has taught at Nazareth College,
Kirtland Community College, West Virginia University, Wheeling Jesuit University
and Sarah Lawrence College. The Distinguished Poet-in-Residence at Frostburg
State University in Maryland, he now directs that school's Frostburg Center for
Creative Writing.
poetry, a collection of prose poems, numerous published stories, essays and
poems, and is co-translator with Sinan Toprak of Voice Lock Puppet, poems by
contemporary Turkish poet Ali Yuce. He's also co-editor of two anthologies: Poetry
30 (with Daniel Crocker) and Evensong (with Chad Prevost) and of review revue, a
tabloid tri-quarterly focusing on reviews of poetry books, interviews with poets
and prosody essays.
A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, LaFemina holds an MFA in Poetry from
Western Michigan University as well as an MA in Literature with an emphasis on
Twentieth-century Literature from WMU. He has taught at Nazareth College,
Kirtland Community College, West Virginia University, Wheeling Jesuit University
and Sarah Lawrence College. The Distinguished Poet-in-Residence at Frostburg
State University in Maryland, he now directs that school's Frostburg Center for
Creative Writing.
Some links featuring
my work, interviews
with me, or other
LaFemina tidbits:
Here's a link of an
interview with me
before my Winter
'04 reading at
Michigan State
University.
MSU Interview
my work, interviews
with me, or other
LaFemina tidbits:
Here's a link of an
interview with me
before my Winter
'04 reading at
Michigan State
University.
MSU Interview
Meet Gerry LaFemina
Some of these books are available through SPD Books or Amazon.com or Barnes
and Noble.com.
Rest Stops (1990), Chapbook, Stop Light Press
23 Below (1994), Poems, Back Porch Press
"In poems of desire, loss, and occasional luck, Gerry LaFemina engages the
heiroglyphic landscape of urban decay where meaning seems to emanate from a
'ritual of singles bars and punk bands,' from the beckoning illegibility of graffiti and
the 'lattice work of cracks on a windshield.' His insistence that even a place
abandoned/ by . . . lovers may seem full of grace' charges these poems with
affirmation and makes them memorable and necessary as we approach the end of
our century." -- Michael Waters
"Gerry LaFemina brings us news fromt he cities of the last decade, unforgiving
neighborhoods where 'the civilized world glows/ saffron oneither side of the street'
while the sprayed scrawls of graffiti seem 'the dialects/ of the dead, the
statements backward masked on old LPs' -- fragments of a language no one can
relaly read anymore. Lonely, icy and restless, these poems traverse the
landscapes of urban disaffection with quick intelligence, formal inventiveness, and
almost as much desperation as our times themselves." -- Mark Doty
This book is available free at the Contemporary American Poetry Archive:
CAPA
The City of Jazz and Punk (1995), Chapbook, Jump Up USA
"I consider Gerry LaFemina to be the Iggy Pop of Contemporary American poetry."
-- Jim Daniels
A Print of Wildflowers (1996), Chapbook, Ridgeway Press
Shattered Hours: Poems 1988-94 (1997), Red Dancefoor Press
"The poem as a psalm or thank you is perhaps out of fashion . . . but LaFemina has
written a book whose gratitudes, even in the midst of our suffering and confusion,
rings brightly as a bell. His poems are skillful, heartfelt, funny, and accurate." --
William Matthews
"LaFemina's work is grounded in this world and full of tenderness and compassion
toward all of the awkward things and people who lurch through life here-- his
affection and humor are in every line of these poems." -- Jean Valentine
Zarathustra in Love (2001), Prose Poems, Mayapple Press
"Taking on everything from Persion prophets to Big foot, Jim Neighbors to UFO's
and Berlitz tapes to the George Forman Grill, Gerry LaFemina elevates the notion
of unpredictability in the prose poem. ZARATHUSTRA IN LOVE is colossal, intense,
and full of visceral magic." -- Denise Duhamel
Mayapple Press
A Garment Sewn from Night Itself (2003), Chapbook, March Street Press
"The poems in A GARMENT SEWN FROM NIGHT ITSELF are possessed of great
energy and light. They dance on the page, the way hipped poetry should.
LaFemina is a poet of imense breath and incantatory vision. These poems, this
book, will glow in your hands." -- Virgil Suarez
Buy this book from March Street Press
Graffiti Heart (2003), Anthony Piccione Prize in Poetry Winner, Mammoth Books
"Gerry La Femina's poems haunt me in the best sort of way--they have a kind of
an unsettling lyric beauty that makes me think about the big emotions (sorrow,
joy, humor) and the big subjects (life, love, death). His is a brave poetic, a canvas
filled with both the small details of day-to-day existence and their larger, more
profound implications. I defy any reader to leave Gerry La Femina's work without
being charged and changed by this poet's eye, his heady wit, and his generous
way of seeing our world."
-- Allison Joseph
"Although a clear-headed and fairly straight forward narrative drives these poems,
strung out easily over three or four lines at a time so they move gracefully down
the page, there is more here than deft and nifty story telling.
There is ethos and pathos here too of the old kind, when the poet manages a
balance between thinking and feeling that allows these poems to be genuine and
modest at the same time. And there is humor here, and honest chuckling at one's
own stupid fate. Most importantly, there is a raw reckoning of the self in its
sometimes most vulnerable states that's at the heart of our best poetry."
-- Bruce Weigl
Buy this book from SPD!
The Window Facing Winter (2004), New Issues Press
"In THE WINDOW FACING WINTER, the urgency of the beautiful and sometimes
murderous urban landscape, set alongside the seductive, intricate oasis of the
Japanese garden, renders possible a vision into 'sliver of the absolute.' With
unflinching accuracy, LaFemina delivers a sacred, if momentary, world, laying bare
its essential loneliness, its obstinate beauty" --Robin Behn.
"Gerry LaFemina in THE WINDOW FACING WINTER, an intense, intimate and
intelligent new collection of poems, is not afraid to touch and be touched by the
extraordinary grit and grind of each new day and its aftermath. The startling
moments of vision in these poems are as radiant, elegant, and precise as they are
hard-edged--charting, as they do, the vast distances of the American landscape
and the long and lonely road home. They are heartening in their tederness and
dignity." --Eric Pankey
Order this book from SPD!
The Parakeets of Brooklyn, Winner of the 2003 Bordighera Prize in Poetry, 2005
Bordighera Press. Translated into Italian by Elisa Biagini
"What draws me to Gerry LaFemina's poems is how much of the world they
contain: Brooklyn streets, race-tracks, Vietnam, a boy's imagined transgressions,
family dramas. What is compelling is the tension between the speaker's urge to
understand and the mystery that resists explanation...listen to how these poems
search as they attempt to tease out meaning. Or maybe...or maybe is what I hear
pulsing under the lines." --Donna Masini
Order this book from SPD!
and Noble.com.
Rest Stops (1990), Chapbook, Stop Light Press
23 Below (1994), Poems, Back Porch Press
"In poems of desire, loss, and occasional luck, Gerry LaFemina engages the
heiroglyphic landscape of urban decay where meaning seems to emanate from a
'ritual of singles bars and punk bands,' from the beckoning illegibility of graffiti and
the 'lattice work of cracks on a windshield.' His insistence that even a place
abandoned/ by . . . lovers may seem full of grace' charges these poems with
affirmation and makes them memorable and necessary as we approach the end of
our century." -- Michael Waters
"Gerry LaFemina brings us news fromt he cities of the last decade, unforgiving
neighborhoods where 'the civilized world glows/ saffron oneither side of the street'
while the sprayed scrawls of graffiti seem 'the dialects/ of the dead, the
statements backward masked on old LPs' -- fragments of a language no one can
relaly read anymore. Lonely, icy and restless, these poems traverse the
landscapes of urban disaffection with quick intelligence, formal inventiveness, and
almost as much desperation as our times themselves." -- Mark Doty
This book is available free at the Contemporary American Poetry Archive:
CAPA
The City of Jazz and Punk (1995), Chapbook, Jump Up USA
"I consider Gerry LaFemina to be the Iggy Pop of Contemporary American poetry."
-- Jim Daniels
A Print of Wildflowers (1996), Chapbook, Ridgeway Press
Shattered Hours: Poems 1988-94 (1997), Red Dancefoor Press
"The poem as a psalm or thank you is perhaps out of fashion . . . but LaFemina has
written a book whose gratitudes, even in the midst of our suffering and confusion,
rings brightly as a bell. His poems are skillful, heartfelt, funny, and accurate." --
William Matthews
"LaFemina's work is grounded in this world and full of tenderness and compassion
toward all of the awkward things and people who lurch through life here-- his
affection and humor are in every line of these poems." -- Jean Valentine
Zarathustra in Love (2001), Prose Poems, Mayapple Press
"Taking on everything from Persion prophets to Big foot, Jim Neighbors to UFO's
and Berlitz tapes to the George Forman Grill, Gerry LaFemina elevates the notion
of unpredictability in the prose poem. ZARATHUSTRA IN LOVE is colossal, intense,
and full of visceral magic." -- Denise Duhamel
Mayapple Press
A Garment Sewn from Night Itself (2003), Chapbook, March Street Press
"The poems in A GARMENT SEWN FROM NIGHT ITSELF are possessed of great
energy and light. They dance on the page, the way hipped poetry should.
LaFemina is a poet of imense breath and incantatory vision. These poems, this
book, will glow in your hands." -- Virgil Suarez
Buy this book from March Street Press
Graffiti Heart (2003), Anthony Piccione Prize in Poetry Winner, Mammoth Books
"Gerry La Femina's poems haunt me in the best sort of way--they have a kind of
an unsettling lyric beauty that makes me think about the big emotions (sorrow,
joy, humor) and the big subjects (life, love, death). His is a brave poetic, a canvas
filled with both the small details of day-to-day existence and their larger, more
profound implications. I defy any reader to leave Gerry La Femina's work without
being charged and changed by this poet's eye, his heady wit, and his generous
way of seeing our world."
-- Allison Joseph
"Although a clear-headed and fairly straight forward narrative drives these poems,
strung out easily over three or four lines at a time so they move gracefully down
the page, there is more here than deft and nifty story telling.
There is ethos and pathos here too of the old kind, when the poet manages a
balance between thinking and feeling that allows these poems to be genuine and
modest at the same time. And there is humor here, and honest chuckling at one's
own stupid fate. Most importantly, there is a raw reckoning of the self in its
sometimes most vulnerable states that's at the heart of our best poetry."
-- Bruce Weigl
Buy this book from SPD!
The Window Facing Winter (2004), New Issues Press
"In THE WINDOW FACING WINTER, the urgency of the beautiful and sometimes
murderous urban landscape, set alongside the seductive, intricate oasis of the
Japanese garden, renders possible a vision into 'sliver of the absolute.' With
unflinching accuracy, LaFemina delivers a sacred, if momentary, world, laying bare
its essential loneliness, its obstinate beauty" --Robin Behn.
"Gerry LaFemina in THE WINDOW FACING WINTER, an intense, intimate and
intelligent new collection of poems, is not afraid to touch and be touched by the
extraordinary grit and grind of each new day and its aftermath. The startling
moments of vision in these poems are as radiant, elegant, and precise as they are
hard-edged--charting, as they do, the vast distances of the American landscape
and the long and lonely road home. They are heartening in their tederness and
dignity." --Eric Pankey
Order this book from SPD!
The Parakeets of Brooklyn, Winner of the 2003 Bordighera Prize in Poetry, 2005
Bordighera Press. Translated into Italian by Elisa Biagini
"What draws me to Gerry LaFemina's poems is how much of the world they
contain: Brooklyn streets, race-tracks, Vietnam, a boy's imagined transgressions,
family dramas. What is compelling is the tension between the speaker's urge to
understand and the mystery that resists explanation...listen to how these poems
search as they attempt to tease out meaning. Or maybe...or maybe is what I hear
pulsing under the lines." --Donna Masini
Order this book from SPD!
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