Background Noise Chapbook (preorder)

These six selected poems come from my unpublished chapbook, Background Noise. According to poet Natasha Hakimi Zapata the collection, "is a profound, motley collection of ideas, forms, devices, images and sounds that both move and challenge the reader with each turn of the page." The collection emerged from a 12-week poetry workshop taught by Natasha in 2017, and the poems take inspiration from chapbooks we studied throughout the workshop. The chapbook includes traditional poetry forms such as the sonnet and ghazal, but also leans into contemporary, abstract constructions. Many of these poems became songs on the Bri Barte record Hex Sign. The chapbooks are printed in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY and designed by the author.

Here is Natasha's full review: "The revision process seems to have revealed the heart of your poems to you (what more can a poet ask for!) and while some became more fleshed out and polished, others, such as the delightfully surprising "Wolf" became something else entirely. Perhaps your strongest poem is 'Sacré-Coeur,' a piece that showcases both your poetic abilities—I have already commented how the different uses of the word "sound" through this ghazal are a triumph—but also your vivid imagination. The humor in poems such as "Still Sitting" alternated with more abstract poems such as "Background Noise" and more personal voices such as those heard in "Misfit Love" and "Craftsmanship" make up a collection that reveals deep concern for emotional connection and aesthetic, while also pushing the boundaries of what we talk about when we talk about poetry (to paraphrase Carver). And to top it all off, each poem is carefully crafted and polished, making them a delight to read over and over."