New York-based poet Alison Stone will be Keep St. Pete Lit’s (KSPL) 2017 LitSpace Resident. Stone will be in St. Petersburg from April 9-24, and as part of the residency will be doing a reading on Wednesday, April 19 (as part of KSPL’s annual literary event, The SunLit Festival), and a workshop for local writers on Saturday, April 22.
Alison Stone, courtesy of the author.
Stone’s latest collection, Ordinary Magic, is an interpretation of The Tarot. Its 78 poems cover the deck’s gamut, including the Major and Minor arcana cards. Mythical figures such as Prometheus and Persephone appear, as do Lou Reed and Steve Jobs. During her residency, Stone plans to create poems based on Greek and Norse mythology.
Stone has been awarded Poetry magazine’s Frederick Bock Prize, as well as the Many Mountains Moving Poetry Award. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, Poetry International, and Ploughshares, among numerous others. And her collections have been published by NYQ Books, Presa Press, and Parallel Press.
“Our applicants this year were amazing,” said KSPL Director Maureen McDole. “We had applications from Sweden, Ireland, Norway, and Zimbabwe, and from some extremely accomplished writers. But Alison Stone still managed to stand out.”
To find out more about the SunLit Festival, or Keep St. Pete Lit, click here.
Pomegranate
By Alison Stone
Mother warned, Sex is a trap.
Still, every teenager wants more
than flowers, more than stale, virginal green.
His lips, cool moss against my nape.
I traded sunlight for a romp
in the forbidden, a devoted mate.
My meadow-scent’s exotic here, so he’s eager
to please, writes me poems by the meager
glow of dying fireflies. If he’d only kick that mange-
infested dog out of our bed. Such horrid pant-
Ing! Each tongue licks my face like meat.
—From Borrowed Logic (Dancing Girl Press, 2014)
This article appears in Mar 9-16, 2017.
