I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with Noah Falck on a lot: My Next Heart, a Foundlings book release, programming at Just Buffalo, and much more to come. Last January, we sat down over a few pints in the Statler City bar, just off Buffalo’s Niagara Square, and turned our attention for a few hours to a subject Noah rarely brings up: his own work.
We covered a lot of ground: the reissue of Noah’s 2012 full-length debut, Snowmen Losing Weight from BatCat Press, the forthcoming release of his book Exclusions from Tupelo Press, the early influence of music on his work, the genesis of his Silo City Reading Series, his experience of parenting, and his feelings about calling Buffalo home. You can read that recorded conversation in the Spring 2018 online edition of Rain Taxi.
In late February, Buffalo Spree invited Justin Karcher, Noah Falck, and me to discuss our yearlong process of producing My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry ( Blazevox, 2017), an anthology that captures many of the most prominent and exciting young voices making noise in the city’s poetry scene today — what Spree called a “younger generation of poets writing about how Buffalo has left its stamp on them — and vice versa.”
Noah encapsulated the project, and our experience working together, beautifully during the interview:
Because we’ve got such different poetics, and Justin also has a theater background, there are so many different microcommunities that we were able to bring under this one project. This project is an opportunity to build bridges within the Buffalo literary community. It’s also a wonderful way to highlight a great number of energetic and creative young people writing in this city. I think this project acts as a conduit to future conversations about the work happening here.
On 6 April Foundlings Press unveiled a new website and announced a publishing collaboration with The Public: The Public Books. This historic joint venture — which brings together Buffalo’s hottest new publisher with the region’s premier weekly source of news, arts, and commentary — is both an imprint of Foundlings Press and the publishing arm of The Public, producing full-length books on culture, economic policy, local history, and the arts.
Justin Karcher reads poetry from his forthcoming collection, Those Who Favor Fire, Those Who Pray For Fire
Bruce Fisher discusses the genesis of his book, and various economic/policy issues shared by Rust Belt and Great Lakes cities.
In a J. Peterman collarless chambray shirt and a brown corduroy vest, I tried to cobble together a costume appropriate for our fickle April weather.
The Public Books launch coincided with the release of the imprint’s first title, Bruce Fisher’s Where The Streets Are Paved With Rust: Essays From America’s Broken Heartland, Vol. 1. The release party featured poetry from Justin Karcher, music from DJs Shane and Tone, and remarks from Bruce Fisher — and also offered guests an advance look at the new Community Beer Works Brewery at 520 Seventh St. in the city’s Lower West Side.
Copies of the book are available for purchase at Buffalo’s Talking Leaves and directly from FoundlingsPress.com.
Foundlings Vol. III launched on a bright day June, and poets and readers packed Nietzsche’s, a venerable Allentown bar and music venue for the party. The other editors and I were very happy to host visiting poets George Guida and Gerry LaFemina, who grabbed a righteous lunch with us at Gabriel’s Gate before heading over the party to perform.
Foundlings Vol. III also featured beloved writers from Buffalo and beyond, including Gerry Crinnin, Nathanael Stolte, George Wallace, and Joey Nicoletti. This volume also holds the honor of being poet Lilly Perry’s first ever publication. Pick up a copy and read her powerful poem “What We Make.”
Buffalo poets aged 40 and under can submit to a new anthology of verse through April. BlazeVOX will publish the project in December 2017.
There’s been a lot of buzz around Buffalo poetry lately. The Just Buffalo Literary Center continues to do great work for the city — this year alone they brought Booker-winner Marlon James, Guggenheim Fellow Laila Lalami, and Irish legend Edna O’Brien; their 2017 literary calendar will close with appearances from “rock star” poet Eileen Myles and the extraordinary Dave Eggers. Over the past two seasons the Canisius Contemporary Writers Series brought to Buffalo Theo Dorgan, Kevin Kling, Anne Enright, Cristina Henriquez, Emma Donoghue, and Diana Goetsch; while this year’s UB Oscar Silverman Reading featured Campbell McGrath.
Buffalo continues to enjoy a never-ending carnival procession of literary luminaries, thanks to the indefatigable efforts of the people at these great schools and cultural institutions. But that’s not the buzz I was talking about.
Last spring, two new magazines launched almost simultaneously: the digital native Peach Mag, and my own biannual print publication Foundlings. These joined another lovely publication, Steel Bellow. All three were conceived by people under the age of 30. All three have garnered huge followings in the city and beyond, and have hosted some of the highlight events of the past 12 months.
Peach, for example, has created a pipeline to Buffalo for writers associated with alt-lit outlets like Metatron in Montreal and Monster House in Bloomington, IN. Their readings at venues like Sugar City and Dreamland have brought Buffalo poets together with visiting writers.
Foundlings, too, has had some success in the import-export game. We brought seven Buffalo poets on a five-city tour (with stops in Fredonia, Rochester, Syracuse, and Toronto) during the 2016 election. We’re proud as well that our magazine features the work of up-and-coming Buffalo writers alongside established writers from around the country — like bilingual poet Don Berger of Baltimore, the Anglo-American poet Lytton Smith of Rochester, and Jason Irwin of Pittsburgh. We’ll continue this with the launch of Vol. 3, June 3rd a Nietzsche’s, featuring the poets George Wallace, George Guida, and Gerry LaFemina, all visiting from NYC.
Steel Bellow, meanwhile, maintains a tighter Buffalo focus, giving local poets extended treatment in their issues, really like triptych chapbooks.
The most energetic of us might be the Cringeworthy Poets, who in the space of just two months brought alt-lit and slam phenomena Steve Roggenbuck and Neil Hilborn. This summer, their reading tour will take them all the way to California.
Also in the summer, Buffalonians will enjoy the sixth installment of the Silo City Series, a project bringing multidisciplinary word, music, and installation art events to the grain silos on our waterfront. These generally feature a Buffalo poet alongside a visiting poet (last year’s season ended with Ocean Vuong). Again, a young person was behind it all: Noah Falck, Education Director at Just Buffalo.
Meanwhile, the Buffalo slam community (including the Pure Ink team) continue to host visiting artists and send local talent to compete in the National Poetry Slam. Other open mic events like Wordism bring poets together with musicians.
Those bullet points account for only a fraction of the cool things young Buffalo word-artists are doing. These things are “new,” but the fact of young people taking a lead in the Buffalo arts community is not so new. Because of that, many of us in the community thought it would be a good time to collect young Buffalo writers in one place.
Last night Road Less Traveled Theater put on a poetry showcase that served as our official announcement of the “Buffalo Under 40 Poetry Anthology” (don’t worry — that’s not the title). As I said at the event (in the video above), this is our small contribution to a long and unbroken “revolution” in Buffalo arts, stretching back more than a century.
The project has been underway for a few months now. Co-editors Noah Falck and Justin Karcher are heading up the project, backed by an outstanding editorial board of Buffalo-based poets and curators: Rachelle Toarmino, Paige Melin, Tom Dreitlein, and Eve Williams Wilson.
For the month of April, the team will accept unsolicited submissions. Send work to under40Buffalo@gmail.com, and see www.under40Buffalo.com for guidelines. BlazeVOX will publish the book in December 2017: expect parties.
