The Poetry Project has just named Stacy Szymaszek as its new artistic director, succeeding the outgoing Anselm Berrigan. This is terrific news, for Stacy and especially for the Poetry Project.

Here is the official announcement, as it showed up in my email this morning:

Dear Everyone,

The Poetry Project is delighted to announce that poet Stacy Szymaszek has been hired to be the Project’s new Artistic Director. Stacy’s tenure will begin July 1, 2007. The Artistic Director is basically artistic and executive director rolled into one, responsible for everything from programming to paper clips. She sets the tone for and guides the Project through nine months of annual programming – now in its 41st season, the Poetry Project offers a Wednesday night readings series, a Monday night reading/performance series, a Friday late-night series, 6-10 weekly writing workshops per season, a quarterly newsletter, a (revamped) website at www.poetryproject.com, a stripped-down literary mag The Recluse, and extensive audio and document archives. The Poetry Project is also a 501-c-3 non-profit & raises money in about a thousand different ways, and so the A.D. runs that ship as well as managing staff, paying the bills, working with St. Mark’s Church, putting away chairs after readings, and working with the ever-growing and shifting entity known as the community.

Stacy Szymaszek was born and raised in Milwaukee, WI. From 1999 to 2005, she was the Literary Program Manager for the nonprofit literary organization Woodland Pattern Book Center. Her extensive curatorial and editorial work during this period helped galvanize a community of poets in the Midwest region with Woodland Pattern serving as one of several meeting places. In 2005 she answered the call to move to New York to serve as the Program Coordinator at the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church. This year, she also served as the Monday Night Coordinator. She is the author of several chapbooks including Mutual Aid (gong press, 2004), Some Mariners (Etherdome, 2004), There Were Hostilities (repair, 2005), Pasolini  Poems (Cy Press, 2005) and from hyperglossia (Belladonna Books, 2005). Her first book, Emptied of All Ships, was published in 2005 and her second book hyperglossia is forthcoming in 2009, both with Litmus Press. Her work appears in the recent anthology For the Time-Being: The Bootstrap Book of Poetic Journals, as well as in numerous journals and web-zines. She is also a coeditor with Instance Press, contributing editor of Fascicle and editor of the poetry magazine Gam.
 
Work by Stacy Szymaszek:
 
http://bostonreview.net/BR30.1/sampler.html
http://www.fascicle.com/issue01/Poets/szymaszek2.htm

Interviews with Stacy Szymaszek:
 
http://www.kickingwind.com/5406.html
http://www.chicagopostmodernpoetry.com/Stacy.htm

Review of Emptied of All Ships:
 
http://jacketmagazine.com/28/sims-szym.html

 

Stacy is learning the secret of every good organizer – if you show up and put in a lot of good energy, many groups will just give themselves to you. This blog first took note of her poetry in September 2003. Subsequently, I had the opportunity to hear her give a great reading in Chicago. As a poet & as a person, Stacy Szymaszek is the real deal. Congrats to all concerned.