Half of the Birdsong: Poetry Working Toward Personal Truth, Sponsored by Copper Canyon Press
Friday, March 6, 3:20 p.m. to 4:35 p.m. ET
Ballroom II, Baltimore Convention Center, Level 400
In this extraordinary pairing, two poets showcase poetry’s ability to reveal profound truths. In Gabrielle Calvocoressi’s poems, the body becomes a cistern in which lyric springs forth both brave vulnerability and a commitment to hope. In Richard Siken’s poems, precise storytelling excavates the past by way of a confrontation with the experience of having a stroke. Both write from within the middle of a life—queer, scarred, seeking renewal—from within an architecture resonant with sound.
Panelist Bios:
Richard Siken is a poet and painter. His book Crush won the 2004 Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, selected by Louise Glück, a Lambda Literary Award, and a Thom Gunn Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other books are War of the Foxes (Copper Canyon Press, 2015) and I Do Know Some Things (Copper Canyon Press, 2025). Siken is a recipient of fellowships from Lannan Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.
Gabrielle Calvocoressi is the author of The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart, Apocalyptic Swing (LA Times Book Prize finalist), and Rocket Fantastic, Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry winner. Calvocoressi has received a Stegner Fellowship and Jones Lectureship, a Rona Jaffe Award, a Lannan Foundation residency, and other awards. Their poems appear or are forthcoming in The Baffler, The New York Times, Poetry, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Tin House, and The New Yorker. Calvocoressi is an editor at large at Los Angeles Review of Books and poetry editor at Southern Cultures, and was a Beatrice Shepherd Blane fellow. Calvocoressi teaches at UNC Chapel Hill and lives in Old East Durham. Their new poetry collection, The New Economy, will be released from Copper Canyon in October 2025.Photo Credit: Alyssa LaFaro
Michael Wiegers has been editing books for Copper Canyon Press since 1993 and serves as the press’s artistic director and executive editor. Most recently, he edited two poetry anthologies: A House Called Tomorrow: 50 Years of Poetry and Come Shining: More Poems and Stories from Fifty Years of Copper Canyon Press. He is also the poetry editor of Narrative magazine and edited What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Essential W.S. Merwin. He is at work on a book about Merwin and serves as a trustee for the Merwin Conservancy.
Photo credit: Copper Canyon Press
Photo credit: Copper Canyon Press
