Join us for the launch of poet Alicia Mountain's collection of poems, Four in Hand, on Saturday, April 22, at 144 Montague St and via Zoom! Doors will open for a reception for in-person guests at 6 PM, and readings and performances will begin at 7 PM. Poets Ana Božičević, Megan Fernandes & Isabella Willms-Jones will open for Mountain. Book signing to follow.
All in-person attendees are encouraged to wear masks. Note that by attending this event, you agree to abide by our code of conduct below. Brooklyn Poets reserves the right to dismiss from our programs any participant found to be in violation of these policies. Thank you for respecting our community.
About Four in Hand
Comprised of four heroic crowns of sonnets, Alicia Mountain’s Four in Hand is both formal and experimental, ranging from lyric romantic and familial narratives to blank verses of reconfigured found text pulled from financial newsletter emails. Language and white space equally captivate with their sparsity and abundance as Mountain pursues the implications of national political identity with intersectional awareness. These poems interrogate our collective complicity in late-stage capitalism, drone warfare, the election of Donald Trump, environmental degradation, mental health crises, and the dawn of Covid-19 through the lens of gay poetic lineage, regionalism, and familial kinships structures.
As in all lived experiences, treacheries and triumphs fade in and out of focus and intimacy, heartbreak, travel, eroticism, joy, and quotidian happenings offer character and momentum across non-linear narrative arcs. Through enthralling images, gripping storytelling, and world-building, Four in Hand carves out necessary space for lesbian gaze, speakership, and personhood. From the back corner of a vast, sprawling, yet gorgeous landscape of thought, Mountain's poems beckon us inside.
About the Author
Alicia Mountain is the author of Four in Hand, a collection of heroic crowns of sonnets, published by BOA Editions in 2023. Her debut collection, High Ground Coward, was selected by Brenda Shaughnessy as the winner of the 2017 Iowa Poetry Prize. Mountain was a Clemens Doctoral Fellow at the University of Denver and the 2020–21 Artist in Residence at the University of Central Oklahoma. She has been a contributing editor at the Kenyon Review and serves on the board of Foglifter journal in San Francisco. Mountain is a lesbian poet and teacher based in New York City.
About the Opening Acts
Ana Božičević grew up in Zadar, Croatia, before coming to Brooklyn, New York. Ana is a poet, translator, teacher and occasional singer. She is the author of Povratak lišća / Return of the Leaves, Selected Poems in Croatian (Hrvatsko Društvo Pisaca/Croatian Writers Society, 2020); Joy of Missing Out (Birds, LLC, 2017); the Lambda Award-winning Rise in the Fall (Birds, LLC, 2013); and Stars of the Night Commute (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2009).
Megan Fernandes is a writer living in New York City. Fernandes has published in the New Yorker, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares and Kenyon Review, among other places. Her book Good Boys was published by Tin House Books in 2020. Her forthcoming collection, I Do Everything I’m Told, will also be published by Tin House in summer 2023.
Isabella Willms-Jones is a Creole-German writer of daytime copy and nighttime poems based in Philadelphia. Her work has previously appeared in MiddleWestern Voice, Hot Pink Magazine, G*Mob and Silver Operation.
Brooklyn Poets Code of Conduct
Brooklyn Poets will not tolerate any instances of discrimination, harassment or abuse in conjunction with any of our programs. Respect and consideration for others, both within and outside our programs, are core values to be upheld by all participants. Discrimination against and/or harassment of community members on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, national origin, religion, age, marital status, veteran status or any other factor is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Program participants are expected to adhere to all federal, state and local laws and regulations. Should a board or staff member, independent contractor, volunteer or program participant be found to violate any aspect of the organization’s code of conduct, Brooklyn Poets reserves the right to dismiss them from the program. Consequences may include, but not be limited to, dismissal from the current activity, suspension, ineligibility for all future activities, and/or loss of payment or fees. If you have any issues to report, please do not hesitate to contact Board President Isaac Myers III ([email protected]), Executive Director Jason Koo ([email protected]) or Deputy Director renée kay ([email protected]), and they will get back to you as soon as possible.