PoemTalk: Lisa Fishman's Mad Composition

Al Filreis will host Laynie Browne and Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué as they discuss poems from Lisa Fishman's Mad Word, Mad Kings, Mad Composition (Wave Books, 2020) with Fishman herself.

PoemTalk,cosponsored by the Poetry Foundation and the Kelly Writers House, has brought together friends in the world of poetry and poetics for close (but not too close) readings of poems, since 2007; it seeks to gain for poets and their poems new readers and listeners. PoemTalk is also a collaboration with PennSound.

Laynie Browne's recent and upcoming publications include Translation of the Lilies Back into Lists (Wave Books, 2022), A Forest on Many Stems: Essays on The Poet’s Novel (Nightboat, 2021), Letters Inscribed in Snow (Tinderbox, 2022), and Apprentice to a Breathing Hand (Omnidawn, 2025). Browne’s honors include a Pew Fellowship, a National Poetry Series Award, and a Contemporary Poetry Series Award. She teaches and coordinates the MOOC Modern Poetry at University of Pennsylvania.

Al Filreis is Kelly Professor of English, Faculty Director of the Kelly Writers House, Director of the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing, Co-Director of PennSound, Publisher of Jacket2 magazine—all at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1985. Filreis’s publications include 1960: When Art and Literature Confronted the Memory of World War II and Remade the Modern, The Difference Is Spreading: Fifty Contemporary Poets on Fifty Poems (with Anna Strong Safford), and Counter-Revolution of the Word: The Conservative Attack on Modern Poetry, 1945-1960. He produces and hosts a monthly podcast/radio program, PoemTalk, cosponsored by the Poetry Foundation, and teaches “ModPo," an open online course. His honors as an educator include being named one of the Top Ten Tech Innovators in Higher Education for 2013 by the Chronicle of Higher Education and the 2000 Pennsylvania Professor of by the Carnegie Foundation.

Lisa Fishman is the author of several collections, including Mad World, Mad Kings, Mad Composition (Wave Books, 2020), 24 Pages and other poems (Wave Books, 2015), and F L O W E R C A R T (Ahsahta Press, 2011). Fishman’s work is anthologized in Best American Experimental Writing (Omnidawn, 2014), The Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity University Press, 2013), The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta Press, 2012), and elsewhere. She is Professor of English and Creative Writing Columbia College Chicago

Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué is a poet and writer living in Chicago whose recent publications include Madness (Nightboat Books, 2022) and Losing Miami (The Accomplices, 2019), which was nominated for the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry. Ojeda-Sagué is the coeditor of An Excess of Quiet: Selected Sketches by Gustavo Ojeda, 1979-1989. He is currently a PhD student in English at the University of Chicago where he works in the study of sexuality.

All guests over the age of two must wear a mask inside the Poetry Foundation building. Guests over the age of five must show proof of vaccination and booster up to the level to which they are eligible for their age group. Guests over the age of 18 must show ID alongside their proof of vaccination. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask.

Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include CART captioning and ASL interpretation. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Poetry Foundation, 61 West Superior Street, Chicago, United States