Annie Finch: A Solo Reading and Conversation
On Spells: New and Selected Poems —“An exuberant exposition of Annie Finch’s accomplishment as a poet of craft, humor, myth, intimacy and of the natural world.” (Marilyn Hacker, chancellor, Academy of American Poets)
“Annie Finch understands better than any contemporary I know what poetry feels like and sounds like when it is completely at home in its traditions. ... She is a major poet, one of very few who understand how lyric lives in part because it can speak for something larger than the ego.” (Charles Altieri, University of California, Berkeley)
“Annie Finch is an American original, a master of control who shows no fear of excess, and none of quietness either. With a perfect-pitch ear for the American tongue, she is a formalist as much in the tradition of Robert Duncan and Bernadette Mayer as of Hart Crane and John Berryman. The directness and simplicity of her poems are deceptive—they have depths and delights that appear to go on forever. We haven't had a poet so capable of combining control and excess since the young Robert Duncan.” (Ron Silliman)
Annie Finch
Poet, writer and performer Annie Finch has published more than 20 books, most recently Spells: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press). Her incantational and gorgeously crafted poems use form to explore earth-centered spirituality, uniquely merging word, rhythm and ritual. Finch’s poetry appears in Field, Jacket, Agni, Yale Review, Poetry, Paris Review, Norton Anthology of World Poetry and Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry. Her work has been performed widely including at Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. She is the founder of PoetCraft.org, a magazine and community for poets, and of the magical online market and community PoetryWitch.com.