"Ordinary Genius" and "Lucifer at the Starlight" out now from contributor Kim Addonizio

Oakland resident and prolific poet Kim Addonizio, who had her first publication right here in our literary magazine, in issue 4.2, has released two books this year.

One is her fifth collection of poems, titled Lucifer at the Starlite, and the other is a book on craft for struggling and beginning poets, called Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within.

Ordinary Genius has received much praise since its release in Spring 2009. Lucifer at the Starlite was released in September, and the San Diego Union-Tribune called it a lyrically intense collection from “one of the nation’s most provocative and edgy poets.” You can read the title poem from the collection here.

Addonizio is also the author of at least nine other books including a novel in verse and The Poet’s Companion. Of writing books on craft, she says in a radio interview for New Letters with Robert Stewart, that her own writing is informed by reading other poets: “I read something that interests me and then I try to figure out how it works and then I try to show somebody else how it works... How do I learn what I learn, and how do I translate that to somebody else?”

If you live in the Bay Area, you can catch Addonizio on December 1 at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park (more info here) and on December 16, 7 pm, at By the Bay Studio in Sausalito (more info here).

If you’re outside the Bay Area, you can hear Kim read January 11, 7:30 p.m. at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., or January 21, 7:30 p.m. at Seattle Arts and Lectures, Ilsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall, Seattle, WA. She is a passionate and musical reader and I highly recommend grabbing any opportunity you get to see her in person.

-Leigh Ann, Fourteen Hills staff