In Conversation: Kathleen Aguero & Jennifer Martelli

Poets Kathleen Aguero & Jennifer Martelli read from their new books.

Kathleen Aguero’s World Happiness Index derives its title and impetus from an annual report in which surveys from people around the world comprise rankings of each country’s happiness. With its reflective poems and self-portraits, the book grapples with themes of identity and other personal themes, as well as more communal aspects that speak to our interconnected world. These poems bring readers to the intersections of personal and political and so much more.

The Queen of Queens: In this tenacious collection of poems by Jennifer Martelli, the drugs, pop music, rocket crash, and Martelli’s queens–from Geraldine Ferraro to Madonna, Nancy Pelosi to Molly Ringwald–embody the struggle with and resistance against gender oppression, political sexism, and ongoing threats to reproductive rights, while reminding us of the power of one strong woman.

About Kathleen Aguero

Kathleen Aguero’s (she/her) latest book of poetry is World Happiness Index from Tiger Bark Press. She has published several other collections of poetry: After That, Daughter Of, The Real Weather, Thirsty Day, and Investigations: The Mystery of the Girl Sleuth. She is co-editor of three collections of multicultural literature: A Gift of Tongues, An Ear to the Ground, and Daily Fare. Recipient of a Massachusetts Fellowship in Poetry and a fellowship to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Kathleen also was awarded a writing grant from the Elgin/Cox Trust. She has taught at the Writers’ Center at the Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, the NY State Young Writers’ Program at Skidmore, as well as in the Poets in the Schools Programs of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. In 2004, she held the position of Visiting Research Associate at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center in Waltham, Massachusetts. In addition to teaching in the Solstice low residency MFA program, Kathleen teaches for “Changing Lives Through Literature,” an alternative sentencing program based on the power of books to change lives through reading and group discussion. She is a consulting editor in poetry for The Kenyon Review.

About Jennifer Martelli

Jennifer Martelli (she, her, hers) is the author of The Queen of Queens (Bordighera Press) and My Tarantella (Bordighera Press), awarded an Honorable Mention from the Italian-American Studies Association, selected as a “Must Read” by the Massachusetts Center for the Book, and named as a finalist for the Housatonic Book Award. She is also the author of the chapbooks In the Year of Ferraro from Nixes Mate Press and After Bird, winner of the Grey Book Press open reading. Her work has appeared in The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, Poetry, The Tahoma Literary Review, The Sycamore Review, Cream City Review, Verse Daily, Iron Horse Review (winner of the Photo Finish contest), and elsewhere. Jennifer Martelli has twice received grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council for her poetry. She is co-poetry editor for Mom Egg Review.