erika meitner
ARCHIVED NEWS
Fall 2011 / Spring 2012
My biggest spring news is that my third book, Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls, is out from Anhinga Press as of March.
You can order it directly from Anhinga, or via amazon or SPD, or you can order a signed copy directly from me.
My second book, Ideal Cities, is still available from HarperCollins & amazon. It was selected by poet Paul Guest as one of the winners
of the 2009 National Poetry Series (thanks, Paul!), and was reviewed in The New York Times & the Boston Review (Jan/Feb 2011).
I'll be doing readings from Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls and Ideal Cities in GA, FL, MO, IL, SC and WI this fall.
I have a new (July 2011) interview up on the Kenyon Review blog with Weston Cutter (who asks really excellent & thoughtful questions),
and Jake Adam York has a brilliant post on similes (also newly up on the Kenyon Review blog) where he compares me to Outkast (for reals!).
In case you always wanted to see me on video, here I am on the PBS News Hour Art Beat blog reading my poem "Miracle Blanket."
You can also read about how I ended up reading for the News Hour, and my winding career path over at the UVA Today News Blog.
My poem "Elegy with Construction Sounds, Water, Fish" from the Spring 2010 issue of VQR was selected for
Best American Poetry 2011, edited by David Lehman and Kevin Young!
Also, I have seven documentary poems and an essay ("This is not a Requiem for Detroit") in the Spring 2011 Ruin & Rebirth issue of
Virginia Quarterly Review, accompanied by Ryan Spencer Reed's haunting photos of the city. Pick up a copy at a bookstore near you!
(Or get the beatific Issue 27 of Salt Hill with my poem "Ghostbox" in it.)
Spring 2011
I'll be doing readings from Makeshift Instructions for Vigilant Girls and Ideal Cities in IN, VA, NY, ME, WA, MD/DC and OH this spring.
My poem "untitled [and the moon once it stopped was sleeping]" was the poem-of-the-day
for January 28, 2011 at The Academy of American Poets site!
Four of my poems appeared semi-recently on two of my favorite poetry sites: "Instructions for Vigilant Girls" was up on Verse Daily on March 2,
"To Whom it May Concern:" was up on Verse Daily on Oct. 4, "Ideal Cities" was up on Poetry Daily on Sept. 18, and
"May the World to Come Be Neon, Be Water" was up on Verse Daily on Sept. 22.
My gratitude goes to the fine folks at Diode, who nominated my poem "Small, Generic Night Towns" for inclusion in Sundress Publication's
Best of the Net anthology & Dzanc Books Best of the Web, and the fab folks at both Barn Owl Review and Cave Wall for the Pushcart nominations
for "In Praise of Heat" (BOR) and "Ars Poetica with Radio Apparatus, Toddler, & Ducks." Thanks Patty, Mary & Rhett!
Summer/Fall 2010
Lots of web interviews up recently: on Robert Lee Brewer's Poetic Asides blog, on Brian Brodeur's How a Poem Happens blog,
and with Danielle Mebert on her blog In Verse the Feet went Bare.
I did a multi-part interview with the fabulous Sara Gelston over at the Ninth Letter blog (follow the links here for Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3).
I also have a poem out in the last issue of Tin House (Class in America), and the issue has a neato review
in NewPages which mentions my poem!
I've revisited my past as a dating columnist, and assisted the lovely Maura Kelly with her column on
"The Best Poems for Any Stage of a Love Affair." Read it & go seduce someone with poems!
My poem "Big Box Encounter" was recently featured on Slate.com; there's a cool podcast review of it here. Usually the 'comments' section
under the poems on Slate are brutal, but everyone seemed to like my poem this time. Thanks, strangers!
Also, I have more new-ish poems up online at Blackbird, AGNI, Anti-, Diode and Conte. And a brand new one at Painted Bride Quarterly.
Hot off the press this summer: poems in The New Republic, Subtropics (Spring/Summer 2010), Indiana Review (Summer 2010 Issue),
Ninth Letter (Spring/Summer 2010), Gargoyle 56, and the July/August issue of APR.
Though you should be a subscriber to all of these terrific journals, if you're not, you can still read my poem "To Whom it May Concern:"
at the Subtropics website, and the first few lines of "Ideal Cities" up at The New Republic. There's also audio of two of my poems
("Yiddishland" and "Niagara") up at Under the Blue Light, Indiana Review's neato blog (check the left-hand sidebar), and you can read
"Elegy with Construction Sounds, Water, Fish" online at the VQR website.
Spring/Summer 2010
I had poems out this past Spring in The Southeast Review, The Journal, Iron Horse Literary Review, Barn Owl Review, and
The Virginia Quarterly Review. You can read "Elegy with Construction Sounds, Water, Fish" online at the VQR website.
My essay on Rita Dove that originally appeared in Women Poets on Mentorship: Efforts and Affections and was reprinted in Callaloo 31.3
in their issue dedicated to Rita Dove was chosen by editor Randall Kennedy for inclusion in Best African American Essays: 2010,
released from Random House in January 2010. Hear more about the project from the series editor, Gerald Early, on NPR.
My poem "Slinky Dirt with Development Hat," featured on the blog Starting Today: Poems for the first 100 Days, is newly out
in an anthology called Starting Today: 100 Poems for Obama's First 100 Days (U of Iowa Press, 2010).
I also have a few poems (and some audio) in a new anthology recently out from Persea Books -
Spring/Summer 2009
Poems out in the most recent issues of The Florida Review, Washington Square, Indiana Review, The Southern Review, and Barn Owl Review,
and in recent issues of Shenandoah and Alaska Quarterly Review.
I'll be heading to VCCA in August for a 2-week residency--yay!
My poem "Job" is in The Way We Work: Contemporary Writings from the American Workplace (Vanderbilt University Press),
and I also have a poem in Chad Davidson and Greg Fraser's fantastic new instructional book out from Palgrave Macmillan -
Writing Poetry: Creative and Critical Approaches.
Summer/Fall 2008
In August 2007, I joined the English Department at Virginia Tech as part of the Creative Writing faculty,
where I teach in our fabulous and relatively new MFA program.
New poems coming soon in Shenandoah, Alaska Quarterly Review, Indiana Review, and Barn Owl Review!
Check out my essay on Rita Dove (and some of my poems) in Women Poets on Mentorship: Efforts and Affections (U of Iowa Press),
or my poem "Job" in The Way We Work: Contemporary Writings from the American Workplace (Vanderbilt University Press).
Academic News, Summer/Fall 2008:
I'll be hitting the road this semester a bit to speak about Jews and Jewish tattoos at the 2008 Klutznick-Harris Symposium at Creighton University in Omaha in October,
and at the Association for Jewish Studies Conference in Washington DC in December.
Check out my readings page for time/date details.
Summer/Fall 2007
In writing news, I have new poems out this fall on the back page of the Sept/Oct issue of APR,
and in the latest issue of Crab Orchard Review, in a special theme issue entitled
"Come Together: Occasions, Ceremonies, & Celebrations."
My poem "The Bar Code of Love" magically appeared on VerseDaily on October 2 (check their archives if you missed it).
More new poems are coming this winter in the newest Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel.
Also, poems out this past spring in Prairie Schooner (the Yiddishkayt Issue).
Spring 2006
New poems in the Spring 2006 issues of The Kenyon Review & Hotel Amerika !
Fall 2005/Winter 2006
Check out my poems in the special issue of Crab Orchard Review: Ten Years After ~ Documenting a Decade 1995-2005
as well as in the Fall 2005 issue of 32 Poems,
and in the anthology Never Before: Poems About First Experiences (from Four Way Books);
also, read "The Night Before the Wedding" in the Mid-American Review and "Lithomancy" in Nashim.
Kick-Ass Site Alert: Hear lots of cool young poets read their work (myself included) at From the Fishouse.
Spring/Summer 2005
Read "Camp Westmont, 1988" in the fabulous & mammoth Gargoyle #50 (Summer 2005)
Check out "Gentrification" in the anthology Red, White & Blues: Poetic Vistas on the Promise of America
Read poems in Third Coast, Borderlands, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and Barrow Street
Fall 2004
It's a publishing fest! Check out my new poems in the Fall issues of lots of journals...
"Treatise on Nostalgia" and "Prayer for the Neighborhood" in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review
"Faith-Based Option," "Red Tornado Warning," and "Quisiera Declarar" in Third Coast
"Going Down" and "After the All-Night Vigil" in The Minnesota Review
"Yelling," "Kinky," and "Bargain" in The Paterson Literary Review
"Sex Ed" in the North American Review
"Engagement" in Prairie Schooner
Spring 2004
Read poems by my fabulous U.C. Santa Cruz senior seminar students
See the newly released Snakebird: Thirty Years of Anhinga Poets for more of my new work
Pick up a copy of the Spring 2004 Issues of Mid-American Review or Meridian for new reviews of Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore
Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore is a finalist for the 2004 Paterson Poetry Prize!
Winter 2004
Check out my VerseDaily debut
See my poems on Posterband, and the other poets in this fabulous electronic broadside series
Visit the Poetry 30 website
Fall 2003
See an interview with me in the Orlando Sentinel
Read & hear Not a Poem About Driving at Night on slate.com