Backyard #7: Death and Taxes

(Follow signs to back gate. Do not knock on front door.)

Gate opens at 4:30, readings commence at 5:00, drowning of the sorrows to follow.

Readings by:
Sarah Heady
Matt Leibel
Tony Press
Natalya Sukhonos
Virgie Tovar

Spring comes rolling around again, with all its bright promises. But where there is life, there must be death, and where there is death, there must be taxes (at least, I think that’s how the estate tax works). In this edition of Backyard we will be confronting the inevitable, the things that always happen, no matter how much we fight or run or imagine it could be different this time around. We’ll talk about cycles, returns, and all the dependable-as-clockwork structures that make our lives tick (until, of course, they don’t).

Revenue agent and/or grim reaper costumes encouraged.

Free, though donations of cash and beer will be accepted.

Reader Bios:

Poet and essayist Sarah Heady writes on human geography, American history, and the built environment. She is the author of Niagara Transnational (Fourteen Hills, 2013), winner of the 2013 Michael Rubin Book Award; Tatted Insertion (San Francisco State University, 2014, with artist Leah Virsik); and a manuscript, Corduroy Road (finalist for the 2013 Omnidawn Poetry Chapbook Prize). Works-in-progress include Comfort, a poetic meditation on female solitude, agency, and relationship set on the prairies of the American West; and the libretto for Unfinished: An Opera About Change, in collaboration with new music composer Joshua Groffman, who has previously adapted her texts for vocal and electroacoustic works. She lives in San Francisco and co-edits Drop Leaf Press, a small women-run poetry outfit. More at sarahheady.com.

Matt Leibel’s short fiction has appeared in Barcelona Review, Quarterly West, Wigleaf, Juked, and many other places. He has read/performed his writing on the radio, in bars, at yoga studios, and inside a police station. Matt also publishes 75 word microstories thrice-weekly on his Facebook page.

Tony Press tries to pay attention. Sometimes he does. His book CROSSING THE LINES – Stories by Tony Press – appeared in January of 2016, published by Big Table. Close to 100 of his stories and poems have appeared in print and online. Although he lives near San Francisco he has no website.

Natalya Sukhonos was born in Odessa, Ukraine and immigrated to New York City at the age of 9. She is bilingual in Russian and English and also speaks Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Natalya has a PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University and teaches in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University. A number of her poems are published online and in print. Natalya was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2015. She lives in San Francisco with her husband Ian and her daughter Naomi.

Virgie Tovar is a fat, Latina femme + author, activist and one of the nation’s leading experts and lecturers on fat discrimination and body image. She is a plus size style writer for BuzzFeed and the creator of #LoseHateNotWeight. Tovar edited the ground-breaking anthology Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion (Seal Press, November 2012)