FROM NYC | IN PERFORMANCE

At a table, Braun and Menzimer trade Sapphic fragments over coffee. Whether the words the other’s or their own, they are logged with the conviction of devoted functionaries. As the libretto loops and the snake spits its tail back out, the lines come to sit like punch lines and jingles. Never wanting to hear the same way twice, exegesis falls to us. – MAXWELL PAPARELLA

MADELEINE BRAUN + PARKER MENZIMER

SUNDAY MARCH 5TH

knife | fork | book
at Rick’s Cafe | 281 Augusta Avenue | Kensington Market | Toronto

Doors 6:30  Poetry 7-ish  pwyc

TrueBlock is a chapbook-length love poem comprised of fragments loosely modelled after Sappho’s extant work. The collaborative book doubles as a collection of ephemera as each fragment is printed on a discreet peelable shipping label. TrueBlock was printed and hand-bound at Ugly Duckling Presse.

IN PERFORMANCE: TrueBlock takes the form of an intimate discourse that references the origins of the book. Following the thread of one of their favorite topics, the nature of love, Parker and Madeleine began an investigation of love’s ultimate poetic expression: sapphic verse. In the performance the authors face one another and read the four versions of their book to one another, trading off page-to-page and then fragment-to-fragment. There are four versions of the book because the poets combined and randomized their respective fragments four times to obscure their individual voices in the service of one treatise. 

MADELEINE BRAUN’s poetry has appeared in The Impressement Gang, The Stockholm Review of Literature, and is forthcoming in Matrix. She has given readings at Topos Books, Unnameable Books, Spoonbill Books, among other venues. Madeleine hosts a reading series entitled Throop Avenue Reading Series in her backyard. 

PARKER MENZIMER is a New Yorker via Albany, California. His published work includes the interactive digital chapbook ‘Past Life Regression Workshop’ among other artist books. He has read or performed at various venues including MoMA PS1, Java Projects, Spoonbill Books, and Greetings Readings. He hosts the Group Huddle reading series at Topos Books in Ridgewood, Queens.