On Sunday, July 21, Baton Rouge Gallery welcomes writers Vincent Cellucci and Rodger Kamenetz to its Sundays@4 series for readings from their newest books (both from Lavender Ink).
The event, as with all Sundays@4 events, is open to the public free of charge.
Vincent Cellucci’s ‘Absence Like Sun’
“Absence Like Sun” illuminates an axiomatic paradox subverting the foremost symbol of the Platonic ideal and the writer’s working relationship with Louisiana regionalism. This book of lyric poetry also presents a creative, mythic worldview, which orbits the title imagery’s subverted symbolism, where the sun becomes the warming image of absence. Conceptually, these poems function like heliophysics—alternating between solar flares and an axis poem in concurrent verse utilizing the left and right side of the page. Some of the predominant recurring themes of the manuscript are haunting homelessness, filiation/affiliation, post-Katrina New Orleans, Christian myth, and the paradoxical nature of the universe.
Vincent Cellucci wrote “Absence Like Sun” (Lavender Ink, 2019) and “An Easy Place / To Die” (CityLit Press, 2011). He has two collaborative titles: “come back river” (Finishing Line Press, 2014) and “_A Ship on the Line” (Unlikely Books, 2014), which was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award.
Rodger Kamenetz’s ‘Yonder’
This collection of prose poems from the author of “The History of Last Night's Dream,” “The Jew in the Lotus” and “To Die Next To You” brims with respect for the genre, with homages to forebears from Baudelaire to Max Jacob, Russel Edson to Kafka.
Poet, author, essayist, biographer, religious thinker and dreamwork practitioner, Rodger Kamenetz is probably best known for his breakthrough account of Jewish-Buddhist dialogue, “The Jew in the Lotus.” A serious student of dreams since 1999, his “The History of Last Night's Dream” was featured on Oprah Winfrey's Soul Series. His poems have appeared in hundreds of periodicals and 25 anthologies. His previous books of poetry include “The Missing Jew,” “Stuck,” “The Lowercase Jew,” and “To Die Next To You.” Yonder is his eighth collection. Kamenetz lives in New Orleans where he practices Natural Dreamwork.
Copies of each of these books will be available following the reading. As with all Sundays@4 events, this special presentation is open to the public and free to attend.