Radical Poetry Reading with Todd Colby

Guitarist, banjo player, and vocalist Wendy Eisenberg writes songs and improvises. They have released albums of improvised music on Tzadik, VDSQ, BaDaBing!, Feeding Tube, Dear Life, and Garden Portal; performed at Roulette, The Stone, and National Sawdust; and have released and toured several critically acclaimed albums of popular song, including with the rock trio Editrix. A writer on and around music, Wendy’s writing can be found in John Zorn’s Arcana VIII: Musicians on Music, Sound American Ed. 23, and in the Contemporary Music Review.

New York-based vocalist from Sydney, Australia Charmaine Lee’s music is predominantly improvised. Charmaine has performed at ISSUE Project Room, the Kitchen, Roulette, The Poetry Project, and MoMA PS1, and participated in festivals including Resonant Bodies, Huddersfield Contemporary, and Ende Tymes. She has been featured in group exhibitions including The Moon Represents My Heart: Music, Memory and Belonging at the Museum of Chinese in America (2019). As a composer, Charmaine has been commissioned by the Wet Ink Ensemble (2018) and Spektral Quartet (2018). In 2019, she was an Artist-in-Residence at ISSUE Project Room, and is a current 2021 Van Lier Fellow at Roulette. Charmaine is currently a member of the Editorial Board of Sound American.

Musician, visual artist, and writer Lee Ranaldo co-founded Sonic Youth in 1981, and has been active on the New York and International music and art scenes for the past 40+ years as composer, performer and producer. He also exhibits visual art and has published several books of journals, poetry and writings on music. His LP Names of North End Women was released in February 2020 on Mute Records.

Poet, editor, and professor Wendy Xu is the author of The Past (Wesleyan University Press, 2021) and Phrasis (Fence Books), named one of the 10 Best Poetry Books of 2017 by The New York Times Book Review. Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Granta, Poetry, Tin House, The New Republic, and widely elsewhere. She is assistant professor of writing at The New School in NYC, where she teaches poetry.

Brooklyn-based poet and artist Todd Colby is the author of six books of poetry. His most recent book, Splash State, was published by The Song Cave in 2014. His writing and art have recently appeared in The Believer, Bomb Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Denver Quarterly, Dizzy Magazine, Hyperallergic, and Poetry Magazine.