Anelise Chen and Ben Fama are painters of present architectures — parking lots, interstates, gyms — with all their grand and subtle voids, thick with longing and alienation. They remind us that stress and desire both ask for release. What might come next is more of a mystery.
Ben will be screening work made in collaboration with artist and filmmaker Mara Mckevitt.
Featuring a guest introduction by Eugene Lim
This event will also be livestreamed for free on The Poetry Project's YouTube channel.
Anelise Chen is the author of the novel SO MANY OLYMPIC EXERTIONS (Kaya Press 2017) and forthcoming CLAM DOWN (One World 2025). Based on her brief stint as the Paris Review’s “Mollusk Correspondent,” the clam book looks at metaphors of shell-building and opening up in times of crisis and grief. Chen’s next project is about paying attention to nature in urban and suburban spaces, by thinking deeply with street trees, parking lot weeds, invasive species, migrating birds, and buried water ways. She teaches fiction at Columbia University, and lives in New Haven with her family.
Ben Fama is the author of the full length poetry collections Fantasy (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2015) and Deathwish (Newest York, 2018). His debut novel If I Close My Eyes was published in fall 2023 from Sarka Press. He is the editor of Wonder Books and lives in New York City.