Pen + Brush in New York City has just published Paper Aperture and Other Poems, by New Canaan’s Gwen North Reiss, as part of their new e-publication program.
Two of Reiss’s poems fall into the category of ekphrasis, or poems inspired by works of art, in this case paintings by John Singer Sargent and Nicolas Poussin. She explores the shared territory of the painter and the writer, and “that aesthetic,” according to Lisbeth Redfield of Pen + Brush, “informs all of the poems in this collection.”
In one poem, the ode meets up with a kitchen appliance. “Friends have been writing me especially about ‘When it was new, my life’ and ‘Ode to the Dishwasher,’” said Reiss. The ‘Ode to the Dishwasher’ came from an assignment in a poetry workshop class I take from poet Sharon Dolin. She had us write an ode to something unusual, something no one else would write an ode to.”
Reiss has published poems in Rhino, the Connecticut Review, Dogwood, Truck, and other literary magazines. She has taken workshop classes in poetry at the 92nd Street Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center with Jen Bervin and Sharon Dolin. Her poem Illuminated was chosen by Karl Kirchwey for the 92nd Street Y’s Rachel Wetzsteon Prize in 2012. In 2014 she participated in a program directed by Sharon Dolin and based at Jiwar, an artist residence in the Gràcia district of Barcelona. She has a degree in Literature from Yale and works as a communications consultant for Grace Farms Foundation and Silvermine Arts Center, and as an educator at the Glass House.
Reiss’s Paper Aperture and Other Poems can be found at penandbrush.org/publications.
Pen + Brush recently published work by local New Canaan poet, Gwen North Reiss.
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