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Susan will read first, and
then Alison will read second.

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And I'll introduce
Susan to begin.

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Susan Briante's
two books of poetry

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include Utopia
Minus and Pioneers

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in the Study of Motion,
as well as the chapbook,

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The Market is a Parasite
that Looks like a Nest.

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These are fascinating
collections.

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Utopia Minus deals
directly with urban decay,

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and the brokenness
inherent in the made

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spaces of our contemporary
American landscape.

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A landscape that, in many of
our cities, suburbs, and exurbs,

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is based on sprawl and
excess, on human and financial

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speculation.

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A landscape that forces
us to appropriate

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the scale that living in
such a place imposes on us.

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The car we must own to travel
through this geography.

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The gross and delicious gas
station food that fuels us.

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The houses that we build
to provide a refuge

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and escape from it all.

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The almost Gothic afterglow
of the lived experiences

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of these physical spaces
becomes a subject.

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The effect of living
this way, the effect

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of making these spaces
in the first place--

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are we complicit?

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Are we culpable?

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More recently, in the chapbook,
and in a forthcoming book

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The Market Wonders-- this is a
good title, The Market Wonders.

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The market wonders.

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What does it wonder?

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The Market Wonders, coming out
in 2016 from Ahsahta Press,

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Susan has adopted the
proclivities of the stock

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market as her muse.

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Detailing the
human-like actions we

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describe it acting out,
observing the lyric

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ways it moves, as if the Dow
Jones Industrial average were

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sentient, independent,
self-determined, unknowable,

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affecting us every
day like weather.

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Even poem-like in how it moves
up and down, the pressure often

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on how it ends.

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As if it were something we
cannot control, and yet,

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ironically, we are the
only actors acting upon it.

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A fascinating perspective
given that the crisis of 2008

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has the potential to be the
defining financial moment

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of some of our lives.

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During a talk Susan gave this
summer at Hotel Congress,

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she said these words about
the evolution of her interest

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and process, and
they stuck with me.

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Quote, "I started to think
about the financial crisis

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as a crisis of storytelling
and representation."

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Not a crisis-- that's
the end quote--

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not a crisis of business
or morality or economics,

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but of language,
and how we order it.

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How we tell the story.

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Of course, business,
moral, and economic acumen

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are critical players
here, but equally so

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is how we discuss
these concerns.

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It turns out, how we talk about
the things that matter to us

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sometimes define our
existence, and how

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we relate to one another.

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This is perhaps why God
made English majors.

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This is the territory
of art and of poetry,

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and of poetry's capacity.

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And this is what I
return to Susan's work

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for again and again.

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I'm so excited for
her new book, and I

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hope you anticipate
it as much as I do.

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Please help me welcome
my friend, Susan Briante.

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