Did you know? April 9 is National Chinese Almond Cookie Day! Celebrate by joining us at the Perch Pub at 8:00 p.m. for a reading by Valerie Fox, Johanna Fuhrman, and Christina Hamm. Stay for special musical guest: Liv Carrow! No cover. Drink and food specials. Any holiday is a great excuse for a night out, and we can’t wait to spend it with you!
Valerie Fox‘s books of poetry include The Rorschach Factory (Straw Gate Books) and The Glass Book (Texture Press). Bundles of Letters Including A, V and Epsilon (Texture Press), is a collaborative work with Arlene Ang. Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets, co-written with Lynn Levin, is just out; it’s a practical guide aimed at both beginning and experienced poets. Fox’s poetry has been published in West Branch, Hanging Loose, 5_Trope, Feminist Studies, Apiary, Sentence, qarrtsiluni, and many others. She was a founding editor of 6ix and Press 1. Originally from central Pennsylvania, she has traveled and lived throughout the world, and has taught writing and literature at numerous universities including Sophia University (in Tokyo) and currently at Drexel University (in Philadelphia).
Joanna Fuhrman is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Pageant (Alice James Books 2009) and Moraine (Hanging Loose Press 2006). Her poems have appeared in many journals, including The Believer, Volt, New American Writing, Conduit, and Quarterly West, and featured in anthologies published by NYU, Carnegie Mellon, HarperCollins, and Soft Skull. In 2011, her poem “Stagflation” won a Pushcart Prize. She is the poetry editor for the journal Ping Pong and has been associated with the Poetry Project at Saint Mark’s Church for many years, serving the organization as a reading coordinator and workshop leader. She teaches poetry writing at Rutgers University, her apartment and in New York City public schools. Her essays on teaching appear regularly in Teachers & Writers Magazine.
Christine Hamm is a PhD candidate in English Lit., and a former poetry editor for Ping Pong. She won the MiPoesias First Annual Chapbook Competition with her manuscript, Children Having Trouble with Meat. Her poetry has been published in Orbis, Pebble Lake Review, Lodestar Quarterly, Poetry Midwest, Rattle, Dark Sky, Press 1, and many others. She has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize, and she teaches English at CUNY. Echo Park, her third book of poems, came out from Blazevox in 2011, and her recent chapbook, My Western, was published as a runner-up to the Erbacce poetry contest. Christine was also a runner-up to the Poet Laureate of Queens.
Liv Carrow, a songwriter and guitarist based in Hudson, New York, explores the shadowy terrain of Appalachian melody and traditional balladry in its many forms, crafting songs both strange and familiar that invoke American roots music, the British folk revival of the 60s, pop crooners of the 70s, and freak folk of the ages, with a sprinkling of 90s alt-indie earnestness. Liv Carrow’s introspective, narrative folk songs draw from the rich history of the bardic template to weave poetic wordplay and reference together with captivating melodies, fingerstyle guitar playing and a clear, direct voice that can hush a chattering room.
Liv also performs with her bluegrass/Americana band Pocatello, who just released an EP on Tommy Stinson’s Done to Death Records. Her latest solo recording, made in Philadelphia, is scheduled for release in 2013 on Single Girl/Married Girl records.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Perch Pub is located at 1345 Locust St Philadelphia, PA 19107.