Let me first recommend that if you
want a copy of Witch Wife, which you should,
and I think you will, once you've
heard Kiki read, there's only three or two,
so be the first one in line.
You can also get it elsewhere, but you might as well
get them all here while we can.
It's got one of the best covers I've seen in a long time.
I think this is just a really fascinating cover.
On Kiki Petrosino, so as a nonfiction writer
I'm obliged to stick to the facts,
so I'd like to begin there.
Kiki Petrosino is the author of three books of poetry,
most recent the bewitching Witch Wife, which
has a stunning cover, as I mentioned,
published like her previous two by Sarabande Books,
a press near to my heart, and recently
also home to my colleague Fenton Johnson.
Kiki Petrosino teaches in, and indeed directs,
the creative writing program at the University of Louisville.
Yes, that's good.
Now I'll continue with yet more facts.
Kiki Petrosino is one of our most playful poetry weirdos,
or one of our weirder, most playful poets,
or one of our most poetic playful wizards.
She is definitely some combination of the three.
Kiki Petrosino's radiance is hard to dark.
She works the walk.
She wins awards.
She has been noted one of poetry's secret ninjas.
She has a secret ninja poem.
I don't know if you're going to read that tonight.
She orders off the menu, and then writes the poem,
and then eats the menu.
She is bruised, too.
Her sends send nouns and let light through.
Her poems bring some somnambulance, some glee,
some psalm, some mourn, some food.
Many Petrosino poems transform.
Martin Luther King Jr. gets summoned
into a kind of a sestina.
Another poem is sourced from the registers
of the annals of otology, rhinology, and laryngology.
One repurposes Thomas Jefferson, another takes from Moby Dick.
Her first book, Fort Red Border anagrams Robert Redford,
and makes of him an attendant lover, a foil,
a partial partner.
She hoovers language from a hymn to mourn those killed by gun.
It forms a psalm.
Is it a balm?
A bomb?
It may be a bit of both.
A Petrosino produces magic from what's around,
85% lean beef, mustard, Macbeth, blood, and blade, and board,
thigh gap, and tree dark, peacocks
moving their long, slow tongues of ash.
In fact, there is nothing I can't imagine
in a Kiki Petrosino poem.
Even her name invites play, or maybe her poems
have driven me there.
So this is where my introduction takes
a little bit of a weird turn.
I can't be sure, so I apologize in advance.
You're going to like it or you're not going to,
I don't know.
So with a remix, or a little switch,
Kiki Petrosino becomes Erosion Kipkit, Kooky Sin Tripp, Kirk
and Isotope, Ionize Kit Pork.
Kiki Petrosino, your poems make me
hungry for Chinese food, even the sci-fi kind.
Kiki Petrosino, you are Opines I Kirk To,
when I Kirk at least, which is often.
Kiki Petrosino, my pinky irks too.
Kiki Petrosino, you inspire it, kook.
In case you can't figure it out, these
are all anagrams for Kiki Petrosino.
I went way down this hall for a long time.
There's about like 5,000, and you should
be happy I stopped with these.
It's fair to say that no poet points
risk more than Kiki Petrosino.
Kiki Petrosino, before you, kinkiest, I stoop.
All the cool kids say, there's no spikier ink too
than Kiki Petrosino.
So without further anagrammatic ado, Kiki Petrosino's spookier
I knit, my pie kiosk intro, this evening here for you.