Rodney Koeneke & Urayoán Noel

Rodney Koeneke’s latest collection, Etruria, is just out from Wave Books. Previous books include Musee Mechanique(BlazeVOX [books], 2006) and Rouge State (Pavement Saw Press, 2003), with new work forthcoming from Hooke Press in 2014. He lives and teaches history at Portland State University in Portland, Ore.

Urayoán Noel’s most recent books of poetry are Hi-Density Politics (BlazeVOX, 2010) and Los días porosos (Catafixia, Guatemala, 2012). He is also the author of the critical study In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam (U of Iowa, forthcoming). A contributing editor of Mandorla, Noel has received fellowships from CantoMundo and the Ford Foundation, among others, and his work has recently appeared in Small Axe, La Noria (Cuba), Lana Turner, and THE &NOW AWARDS 2: The Best Innovative Writing. His ongoing projects include a book of translations of the early poetry of Pablo de Rokha and a multimedia collaboration with artist Martha Clippinger, with whom he created The Edgemere Letters (theedgemereletters.net). Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Noel teaches at SUNY Albany and is a visiting professor at NYU. He lives in the Bronx, where he occasionally performs and records with the band Los Guapos Planetas.