I’m very grateful to Eric Smith, Managing Editor and Poetry Editor at the The Sewanee Review, for recommending West Portal as a book to read for Labor Day 2021. Eric’s incisive thoughts about the book can be read here, https://thesewaneereview.com/articles/staff-picks-labor-day-2021, alongside wonderful book suggestions from other editors at the journal.
West Portal Virtual Book Launch with City Lights and Eduardo C. Corral -- August 11th
On Wednesday August 11th, I’ll be celebrating the release of my first book West Portal at City Lights Books. Growing up in San Francisco, City Lights loomed large & I’m so honored to read there (virtually) alongside beloved poet Eduardo C. Corral on Wednesday, Aug 11th at 6PM PST / 9 PM EST. Please join us if you can! Free registration here: https://tinyurl.com/7c9j5cpf
Publisher's Weekly Reviews West Portal
I am very grateful to Publisher’s Weekly for reviewing West Portal alongside some other excellent July poetry releases. Here is a link to the review: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-64769-040-3.
Group of poems chosen for the James Dickey Poetry Prize
I am honored to share that the editors of Five Points have chosen a group of new poems for the James Dickey Poetry Prize. The selected poems will be published in the May/June 2022 of the magazine. Read the prize abbouncement and learn more about the prize and Five Points here: https://fivepoints.gsu.edu/announcing-benjamin-gucciardi-as-the-winner-of-the-2020-2021-winner-of-the-james-dickey-poetry-prize/
Timeless Tips for Simple Sabotage out now from Quarterly West
My latest chapbook, Timeless Tips for Simple Sabotage, selected by Elena Pasarello as the winner of the 2020 Quarterly West chapbook prize, is now available to order from Quarterly West here. An earlier version of this long poem was also selected as the winner of the Booth Prize for Unexpected Literature.
West Portal now available for pre-order
My debut poetry collection West Portal is now available for pre-order here! Winner of the 2020 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in poetry, the book will be out in the world this July, and features a beautiful foreword by contest judge and beloved poet and teacher Gabrielle Calvocoressi. Of the collection, Eduardo Corral says, “In West Portal, ravishing beauty and ravenous grief braid into utterly lucid and breathtaking poems. The language—deftly scored on the page, rippling with tenderness—radiates with the hushed warmth of an intimate conversation. Ben Gucciardi’s first book has the lyrical depth of a second or third book. It’s an astonishing debut.”
TIMELESS TIPS FOR SIMPLE SABOTAGE chosen for the 2020 Quarterly West Chapbook Prize
I am thrilled to share that Elena Passarello has selected my manuscript TIMELESS TIPS FOR SIMPLE SABOTAGE for the 2020 Quarterly West Chapbook Prize. This is the first piece of writing I’ve worked on that isn’t explicitly a poem. As Ms. Passarello puts it, “Timeless Tips for Simple Sabotage blends facts, ancient forms, research and a wonderfully poetic take on immersion journalism to yield a piece of dazzling hybridity. Told with incredible command of the many voices it employs, this is a surprising and deeply satisfying meditation on how art can intersect with revolution.” A huge congratulations also to Katherine MacCue, Alice Hall and Penelope Pelizzon whose manuscripts will also be published by Quarterly West in the Spring of 2021. A shorter version of this piece was awarded Booth’s Prize for Unexpected Literature earlier this year.
Poem featured on Poetry Daily
My poem “I Ask My Sister’s Ghost to Take Me with Her”, originally published in Harvard Review, was featured on Poetry Daily on November 7th. Check it out here alongside so many other wonderful poems and poets the platform features.
"A Sketch of Happiness in Winter" published in Thrush
I have a new poem “A Sketch of Happiness in Winter” in the November 2020 issue of Thrush Poetry Journal. I love so many of the poems in Thrush, and I’m so honored to be included. I wrote this poem at the vipassana meditation center in North Fork, California in the foothills of the Sierras last winter.
WEST PORTAL chosen for the 2020 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry
I am so thrilled to share that my first full length manuscript WEST PORTAL was chosen for the 2020 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry through The University of Utah Press. I am immensely grateful to judge Gabrielle Calvocoressi, you can learn more about their wonderful poetry and other work here. The prize is named after the beloved poet and teacher Agha Shahid Ali; here is a page with some of his poems and his biography. Look out for the book sometime in the late spring of 2021!
Poem featured on Verse Daily
A poem of mine, “I Ask My Sister’s Ghost to Play a Game of Cribbage”, originally published in Southern Indiana Review as a finalist for the Mary C. Mohr awards, is featured on Verse Daily today! You can read the poem here, and check out the beautiful issue of Southern Indiana Review here.
Verse Daily is a wonderful resource, this is from their website:
Verse Daily is a poetry daily on the worldwide web. By republishing one new poem a day from fine literary magazines and books, Verse Daily promotes poets and their publishers while providing a wealth of excellent poetry to the public free of charge. Verse Daily makes its selections from review copies of all magazines and books it receives. With each poem republished on Verse Daily appears information about the poet and the publisher, including how to purchase the book or subscribe to the publication.
Contributor Interview with Harvard Review
I am super honored to have a new poem, “I Ask My Sister’s Ghost to Take Me with Her” in the latest issue of Harvard Review. The editors ran a series of interviews with contributors to issue 56 on Instragram, and you can check out the interview in which I talk about surfing, writing in the pandemic, and revision among other things here.
"Salve Regina" in the Mississippi Review Prize Issue
My poem “Salve Regina” was a finalist for the 2020 Mississippi Review poetry prize and was recently published in their summer 2020 issue alongside beautiful poems from Zach Linge, G.C. Waldrep, Rachel Galvin, Jenn Givhan and many others. Congratulations to contest winner Katherine Gaffney!
Video for the virtual launch of AGNI 91
Given the global pandemic, the editors of AGNI put together this wonderful virtual launch to celebrate the release of their latest issue. All contributors were asked to send in a video of themselves reading their work, and in the above video I read my poems “Outside Tallahassee” and “The Invisible Hand Knocks Twice” in the hut in our backyard in Berkeley.
Virtual reading to celebrate release of "I Ask My Sister's Ghost" and other DIAGRAM/NMP Chapbooks
Although several planned readings and events have been canceled due to Covid-19, on April 17th, I had the pleasure of joining DIAGRAM/New Michigan Press for a Zoom reading. Readers included other 2020 NMP chapbook authors Sarah Bates, Blanche Brown, Loren Goodman/Pirooz Kalayeh and Patrick Whitfill. The readings were all excellent, and the virtual format allowed people to tune-in from all over the country. My chapbook, “I Ask My Sister’s Ghost” is now available for purchase here: http://www.thediagram.com/nmp/. All the chapbooks they published this year are fantastic, and well worth checking out!
"Lines for John Berryman on the Bus from Little Mogadishu" in The Greensboro Review
The latest issue of The Greensboro Review, a wonderful journal published by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, includes my poem “Lines for John Berryman on the Bus from Little Mogadishu”.
Composer Sakari Dixon Vanderveer and musicians at the December 2019 concert
'Scavengers' included in Sakari D. Vanderveer's latest musical composition
A poem of mine, “Scavengers” was included in Fire Season, an original musical composition by composer Sakari Dixon Vanderveer. About the piece, Sakari writes, “Fire Season was commissioned by the Salastina Music Society for their program Sounds Festive: The Four Seasons x 2, which took place on December 14 and 15, 2019. They commissioned four composers from the Greater Los Angeles area including Philip White, Derrick Spiva, Jeremy Cavaterra, and Sakari Dixon Vanderveer to write a “season” each using the same instrumentation as Vivaldi’s work while pairing the music with poetry. Salastina performed these works alongside the entirety of Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concerti. Fire Season depicts three scenes from autumn in Southern California. Inspired by poetry from California poets Thea Gavin, Benjamin Gucciardi, and Donna Emerson, Fire Season depicts three scenes from autumn in Southern California. The texts of these poems can be found in the anthology Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California.*” You can listen to the whole piece on Soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/sakari-dixon/sets/fire-season
Group of poems named a winner of Litquake's 2019 Writing Contest
A group of my poems was chosen as of one three winners of the 2019 Litquake Writing Contest. Litquake is San Francisco’s biggest literary festival, and is always a wonderful event, bringing together writers and readers from around the Bay Area and beyond. As part of the contest, I had the chance to read at Ritual Coffee Roasters for the LitCrawl festival in the Mission District.
Chapbook to be published with DIAGRAM/New Michigan Press in 2020
I am so honored to share that my chapbook “I Ask My Sister’s Ghost” was chosen as a finalist in the 2019 DIAGRAM/New Michigan Press Chapbook Contest, and will be published in 2020. I am thrilled to join so many talented writers, and a press that publishes such innovative work. You can see the other amazing books in the chapbook series on their website here: http://www.thediagram.com/nmp/. A huge congratulations to Blanche Brown, the winner of this year’s contest, and to all the other finalists!
"The Last Bear in the Headlands" in Fourteen Hills
I am honored to have a new prose poem included in the latest issue of Fourteen Hills. I grew up a few blocks from San Francisco State University, where the journal is produced, and this poem is very much a Bay Area poem. It was also wonderful to read at the release party at Alley Cat Books in San Francisco, and meet the editors and some of the other contributors.
