Launch of Breathlehem: The Selected Poetry of Jim Brodey

Please join us in celebrating the long-anticipated publication of Breathlehem: The Selected Poetry of Jim Brodey!

Why did Jim Brodey appear among us? What do his life and his poetry tell us? That language has mechanisms designed to trigger ecstacy. He hunted for the transcendent, but at the cost of his own body. The thrill of the syllables’ heartbeat, the multiple dimensions of their music. Jim made his own music as he went along, it was the wings that lifted him, and was more than a comfort to him. It was his reason for being. The music he made was also a sexual excitement, a power he had been given and developed, a power he received. His being was and remains a celebration of this fact, whether you understand it or him or whether he understood it himself. Jim was his own musical instrument, a fantastic contraption that he did not always know which end to pick up or which of his mouths to put it in. After all his books being out of print for years, with the publication of Breathlehem: The Selected Poetry of Jim Brodey (Local Knowledge Press) edited by Peter Valente and with an introduction by Bill Zavatsky, Brodey’s work is back in circulation for readers to discover. Look out! Look out! – here comes the irrepressible Jim Brodey! Read him, think of him, remember him.

Hosted by Peter Valente, with readings by Ama Birch, John Godfrey, Samuel Espíndola Hernández, Vincent Katz, Rochelle Kraut, Murat Nemet-Nejat, Jenn Pelly, Bob Rosenthal, Harris Schiff, and Bill Zavatsky.