Chris Hosea

Last updated
Poet Chris Hosea in 2023. ChrisHosea2024.jpg
Poet Chris Hosea in 2023.

Chris Hosea (born 1973) is an American poet, artist, and writer.

Contents

Hosea earned his AB in English from Harvard College (Class of 1994, grad. 1998). [1]

Hosea graduated in 2006 with a MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA Program for Poets & Writers, where he studied with James Tate, Peter Gizzi, and Dara Barrois/Dixon. [2]

Pulitzer Prize winning poet John Ashbery selected Hosea's first poetry collection, Put Your Hands In, for the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. [3]

Put Your Hands In

Reviewers of Put Your Hands In have highlighted the book's emphasis on contradiction, the absurd, and sound, comparing it to the work of Language poets. [4] [5] [6]

Poet and critic Stu Watson described Hosea's poetry as "not a confession but a revelation," calling it the product of "an impossibly refined imaginative vision, a vision that, remarkably open to interpretation, manages to reveal almost nothing about its creator, the poet beyond the page, while disclosing volumes about the contemporary reality in which that poet lives." [5]

Cristina M Rau critiqued the book's "distracting...references to hyper-contemporary technology that simply does not seem to fit: iPhones, Facebook, Uggs, Instagram," but added that "The pieces confuse and delight and reveal in a mostly successful way." [6]

Poet Graham Foust criticized the book, suggesting readers might wish to destroy their copies of Put Your Hands In, indicating that "There will be times, reader, when you'll want to shred this book of threats and celebrations[.]" Foust also found fault with what he saw as the book's "po-mo poetry nosedive[s]," asserting that such failures were balanced by "equal and opposite blast[s] of spastic mastery" such as the "perfectly sad sadness" of a particular poem. [7]

Publishers Weekly found that Put Your Hands In "juggles sexualized imagery, contemporary and historical pop cultural references, and an inventive approach to language that is as relentlessly provocative as it is approachable." [4] Library Journal described Hosea's poetry as an "energized, tumbling mass of tight-stitched imagery" that "presents a sort of nutty roadshow of American culture." [8]

Put Your Hands In's Boston book launch was hosted by The Harvard Advocate, and included supporting readings by Peter Gizzi, Josh Bell, and Christina Davis (poet), curator of the Woodberry Poetry Room at Harvard University. [9]

Double Zero

Hosea's second book of poems, Double Zero, was published in 2016 by Prelude.

Poet Ben Fama called the collection "by turns melancholy, fragmented, and true to feeling....a book-length artist statement via linguistic selfies," and claimed that Double Zero "accurately maps the experience of the contemporary subject." [10]

In a review of Double Zero, The Brooklyn Rail suggested Hosea's poetry was "a statement for our generation," saying that "Hosea's excess of language and sensation, more than any recent poetry collection, captures the unlimited economy of text and experience in 2016, a life that is constantly refreshing as our thumbs push forward on our personal screens, 'pictures quoted in pictures.'” [11]

Writing in Jacket2 , poet and critic Joe Fletcher described Double Zero as follows: "These poems reject the model of surface and substratum, linear chains of logic, narrative, or meditation — poetry that conceals and ultimately bestows upon the diligent reader a kernel of meaning. Instead, Hosea's poems are horizontally distributed linguistic planes, glittering splinters of the quotidian sliding through one another, shrapnel of heterogeneous temporalities." [12]

Double Zero was named a "Best Poetry Book of 2016" by Flavorwire and Entropy Magazine. [13] [14]

Artwork, curation, and residencies

Hosea's visual-art collaboration with painter Kim Bennett was the subject of a 2015 exhibition at Bushwick, Brooklyn gallery Transmitter. [15]

Also included in the Transmitter show were selected postcards from Hosea's ongoing mail-art project The postcard project (aka "What do you feel?) (2012-present). [16] In 2020, The Metropolitan Museum of Art published a short video featuring The postcard project. [17]

Hosea's performance piece Free Poetry (2014-ongoing), in which poems are improvised to audience specifications, has been performed at Ugly Duckling Presse and Art Omi, among other spaces. [18] [19]

So Many Fortresses (2010-2012), a poem-video collaboration with artist Jane Hsu, was performed in 2012 at Ran Tea House in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. [20]

Hosea was curator of the 2012 group show "Ode to Street Hassle" at BronxArtSpace that featured Zoe Leonard, Amy Touchette, Myles Paige, Kim Bennett, Kimi Hodges, and others. [21]

Hosea was curator of the Brooklyn-based Blue Letter Reading Series. [22] Performers included poets Saeed Jones, Eileen Myles, and Tracy K. Smith, who read at Blue Letter's first event, in February 2011. The Blue Letter series was named "Best Reading Series (Poetry)" in New York City by The L Magazine. [23]

Hosea was later curator of the One Bleecker poetry reading series at Codex Books in Noho, Manhattan, from 2018 to 2020. Featured poets included Andrew Durbin, Bunny Rogers, and Masha Tupitsyn. [24]

Hosea is the recipient of fellowship residencies from Vermont Studio Center, Writers Omi Ledig House, and Elizabeth Bishop House in Great Village, Nova Scotia. [25] [26]

Hosea was also the recipient of 2016 and 2020 artist residencies from the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. [27] [28]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Ashbery</span> American poet (1927–2017)

John Lawrence Ashbery was an American poet and art critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Bernstein (poet)</span> American writer (born 1950)

Charles Bernstein is an American poet, essayist, editor, and literary scholar. Bernstein is the Donald T. Regan Professor, Emeritus, Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the most prominent members of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E or Language poets. In 2006, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. and in 2019 he was awarded the Bollingen Prize from Yale University, the premiere American prize for lifetime achievement, given on the occasion of the publication of Near/Miss.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank O'Hara</span> American poet, art critic and writer

Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure in the New York School, an informal group of artists, writers, and musicians who drew inspiration from jazz, surrealism, abstract expressionism, action painting, and contemporary avant-garde art movements.

Martha Serpas is an American poet and educator. She has published a few poetry books and is a professor at the University of Houston Creative Writing Program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth Goldsmith</span> American poet and critic (born 1961)

Kenneth Goldsmith is an American poet and critic. He was the founding editor of UbuWeb and an artist-in-residence at the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing (CPCW) at the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught. He was also a senior editor of PennSound at the University of Pennsylvania. He hosted a weekly radio show at WFMU from 1995 until June 2010. He published 32 books including ten books of poetry, notably Fidget (2000), Soliloquy (2001), Day (2003) and his American trilogy, The Weather (2005), Traffic (2007), and Sports (2008), 'Seven American Deaths and Disasters (2011), and 'Capital: New York Capital of the Twentieth Century (2015). He also was the author of three books of essays, Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age (2011), Wasting Time on The Internet (2016), and Duchamp Is My Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb (2020). In 2013, he was appointed the Museum of Modern Art's first poet laureate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabriel Rosenstock</span> Irish writer

Gabriel Rosenstock is an Irish writer who works chiefly in the Irish language. A member of Aosdána, he is a poet, playwright, haikuist, tankaist, essayist, and author/translator of over 180 books, mostly in Irish. Born in Kilfinane, County Limerick, he currently resides in Dublin.

<i>The Brooklyn Rail</i> Journal of arts, culture and politics

The Brooklyn Rail is a publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics. The Rail is based in Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, critics, and curators, and reviews of art, music, dance, film, books, and theater.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Bonney</span> English poet (1969–2019)

Sean Noel Bonney was an English poet born in Brighton and brought up in the north of England. He lived in London and, from 2015 up until the time of his death, in Berlin. He was married to the poet Frances Kruk. Charles Bernstein published poet William Rowe's obituary for Bonney in US online magazine Jacket2, as well as releasing his own poem The Death of Sean Bonney. Detailed notes to Bonney's poetics by Jacob Bard-Rosenberg are featured on the Poetry Foundation website. The Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry has published a special edition on Bonney.

Belladonna* Collaborative is a small press non-profit publisher and collaborative organization based in Brooklyn, New York City. It was founded in 1999 by Rachel Levitsky as a reading series at Bluestockings in New York, NY. The reading series quickly expanded to a matrix of readings, publications, and informal salons, featuring avant-garde feminist writing, with an emphasis on hybrid and language-focused writing. Currently, the press operates as a non-hierarchical collaborative, publishing books and hosting literary events with attention to diversity in its roster of authors and editorial board.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephanie Strickland</span> American poet

Stephanie Strickland is a poet living in New York City. She has published ten volumes of print poetry and co-authored twelve digital poems. Her files and papers are being collected by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book And Manuscript Library at Duke University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Campanioni</span> American poet

Chris Campanioni is a first-generation American writer and the son of exiles from Cuba and Poland. He was born in Manhattan and raised in New Jersey, studied literature and critical theory at Lehigh University, Fordham University, and the CUNY Graduate Center, where he received his PhD. He has taught Latinx literature, journalism, media studies, and creative writing at Baruch College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Pace University, while serving on faculty at Yale University's Yale Writers' Workshop and the Hudson Valley Writers' Center. He is the recipient of the Academy of American Poets College Prize (2013), the International Latino Book Award (2014), and the Pushcart Prize (2016). From 2014–2016, along with Puerto Rican novelist Jonathan Marcantoni, he ran the YouNiversity, a non-profit digital workshop that provided students access to and experience with the publishing industry through media professionals in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and Africa.

<i>Björk: Archives</i>

Björk: Archives is a retrospective book covering Björk's career, published by Thames & Hudson, which was released on March 30, 2015.

Helen Hajnoczky is a visual poet, who currently resides in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Larissa Shmailo is an American poet, translator, novelist, editor, and critic. She is known for her literary translations from Russian to English, particularly her translation of Victory over the Sun and the anthology Twenty-First Century Russian Poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jenny Zhang (writer)</span> Chinese-American writer, poet, and essayist

Jenny Zhang is an American writer, poet, and prolific essayist based in Brooklyn, New York. One focus of her work is on the Chinese American immigrant identity and experience in the United States. She has published a collection of poetry called Dear Jenny, We Are All Find and a non-fiction chapbook called Hags. From 2011 to 2014, Zhang wrote extensively for Rookie. Additionally, Zhang has worked as a freelance essayist for other publications. In August 2017, Zhang's short story collection, Sour Heart, was the first acquisition by Lena Dunham's Lenny imprint, Lenny Books, via Random House.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taije Silverman</span> American poet, translator, and professor

Taije Silverman is an American poet, translator, and professor. She currently teaches at the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Efe Murad</span> Turkish poet, translator and historian

Efe Murad is a Turkish poet, translator, and historian.

Cecily Nicholson is a Canadian poet, arts administrator, independent curator, and activist. Originally from Ontario, she is now based in British Columbia. As a writer and a poet, Nicholson has published collections of poetry, contributed to collected literary works, presented public lectures and readings, and collaborated with numerous community organizations. As an arts administrator, she has worked at the Surrey Art Gallery in Surrey, British Columbia, and the artist-run centre Gallery Gachet in Vancouver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Handler Ruby</span> American poet

Michael Handler Ruby is an American poet and longtime editor at The Wall Street Journal. As a poet, he has primarily identified with surrealism, Language poetry and the New York School, including Bernadette Mayer, whose early books he co-edited.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angel Nafis</span> American poet and spoken-word artist (born 1988)

Angel Nafis is an American poet and spoken-word artist. She is the author of BlackGirl Mansion. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

References

  1. The President and Fellows of Harvard College, Class of 1994: Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report, 2019, p. 403.
  2. "Chris Hosea," The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved November 22, 2013.
  3. Triska, Zoë (April 10, 2013). "Walt Whitman Award Winner Announced: Chris Hosea for Debut Collection". Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 16 April 2013. Retrieved 14 November 2013.
  4. 1 2 "Put Your Hands In: Chris Hosea," Publishers Weekly. Retrieved June 11, 2015.
  5. 1 2 "Introduction to Chris Hosea's Across the Boss's Desk," Prelude Magazine. Retrieved June 11, 2015.
  6. 1 2 "Put Your Hands In by Chris Hosea," Fjords Review. Retrieved June 11, 2015.
  7. Hosea, Chris (2014). Put Your Hands In: Poems. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. Rear cover. ISBN   9780807155851.
  8. "What Poetry Can Do Archived 2013-11-12 at the Wayback Machine ," Library Journal. Retrieved November 14, 2013.
  9. "November Resonance Poetry Night at The Harvard Advocate". Boston Literary District. Retrieved 10 June 2024.
  10. "Small Press Distribution," Small Press Distribution. Retrieved May 11, 2016
  11. "The Idea Is Read about rather than Looked At," The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved March 7, 2017.
  12. Fletcher, Joe (22 February 2017). "Why can't I touch it". Jacket2. ISSN   2167-2326 . Retrieved March 7, 2017.
  13. "The Definitive List of Must-Read Poetry Books from 2016 (So Far)," Flavorwire. Retrieved March 7, 2017.
  14. "Best Poetry Books of 2016," Entropy Magazine. Retrieved March 7, 2017.
  15. "Transmitter: Over Time Across Space". Transmitter. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  16. "Chris Hosea's Postcard Project Lends Delight to Noncommercial Encounters Between Strangers". Poetry Foundation. The Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  17. "Four stories of finding romance at The Met". YouTube.com. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 31 December 2020. Retrieved 4 June 2024.
  18. "Chris Hosea: Free Poetry". Ugly Duckling Presse. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  19. "From Dusk to Dark: OMI Lights Up the Night". Rural Intelligence. 21 September 2015. Retrieved 31 May 2024.
  20. "Brooklyn Poets: Chris Hosea". brooklynpoets.org. Retrieved 11 June 2024.
  21. Elsas, Julia. "Ode to Mott Haven". Art Boullion. Retrieved 27 February 2023.
  22. "Interview: Chris Hosea (by Rob Crawford)"Best American Poetry Blog. Retrieved November 14, 2013.
  23. "Best of Books & Media". L Magazine. 3 August 2011. Archived from the original on August 23, 2013. Retrieved November 14, 2013.
  24. "Events". codexbooks.info. Retrieved 11 June 2024.
  25. "Winners on Winning: Chris Hosea". Poets & Writers. 4 June 2014. Retrieved June 11, 2015.
  26. Omi International Arts Center (17 March 2015). "About the Spring 2015 Writers Omi Residents". In My Back Yard Hudson. Archived from the original on June 14, 2015. Retrieved June 11, 2015.
  27. "Spring/Summer 2016: The Studios at MASS MoCA Artists-in-Residence". Assets for Artists. MASS MoCA. Archived from the original on 2017-03-08. Retrieved March 7, 2017.
  28. "Studios at Mass MoCA Alumni". assetsforartists.org. Retrieved 11 June 2024.