Join us for the launch of poet Matthew Gellman's debut collection of poems, Beforelight, on Saturday, April 6, at 144 Montague St and via Zoom! Doors will open for a wine reception for in-person guests at 6 PM and readings will begin at 7 PM. Catherine Pond, Loisa Fenichell and Hua Xi will open for Gellman. Book signing to follow.

Note that by attending this event, you agree to abide by our code of conduct and COVID-19 policy below. Effective January 8, 2024, all event attendees except readers at a safe distance on stage are required to wear masks due to the current COVID levels in NYC. Our full policy can be found at the end of the event description. Brooklyn Poets reserves the right to dismiss from our programs any participant found to be in violation of these policies. Thank you for respecting our community.

About Beforelight

Beforelight explores queer childhood as a site of rupture and queer coming-of-age as a process of both becoming and unbecoming. With wisdom and grace, the speaker in these poems confronts the impacts of fragmented relationships and trauma on his nascent identity, ultimately committing to the self's authenticity as the highest form of devotion. Lush, cinematic and deeply psychological, these poems grapple with the fragility of our most formative connections—familial, communal and ancestral—as the speaker searches for communion with himself and tries to discover how not to “make a life out of pain.”

About the Author

Matthew Gellman is the author of a chapbook, Night Logic, selected by Denise Duhamel as the winner of Tupelo Press's 2021 Snowbound Chapbook Award. His first book, Beforelight, was a finalist for the National Poetry Series and selected by Tina Chang as the winner of BOA Editions, Ltd.'s A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Matthew has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and other awards from Brooklyn Poets, Adroit's Djanikian Scholars Program, the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Summer Writers Institute and the Academy of American Poets. His poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Poetry Northwest, Narrative, the Common, Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, Lambda Literary's Poetry Spotlight and other publications. He lives in New York, where he teaches at Hunter College and Fordham University, and he will begin a PhD in literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California this fall.

About the Opening Acts

Catherine Pond is the author of Fieldglass (Southern Illinois University Press, 2021), winner of the Crab Orchard First Book Prize and a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her poems have appeared in Best New Poets, Best American Nonrequired Reading, AGNI, Salmagundi, Adroit, Narrative and other publications. Pond is a PhD candidate (ABD) in literature and creative writing at the University of Southern California, where she teaches writing.

Loisa Fenichell’s work has been featured or is forthcoming in Guernica, Poetry Northwest, Washington Square Review, the Iowa Review and elsewhere. Her chapbook all these urban fields was published by nothing to say press and her collection Wandering in all directions of this earth was the winner of the 2022 Ghost Peach Press Prize, selected by Eduardo C. Corral and published by Ghost Peach Press. She is the winner of the 2021 Bat City Review Editors' Prize and has been a finalist for Narrative's 2021 30 Below contest, a runner-up for Tupelo Quarterly's Tupelo Poetry Prize and a finalist for the Dorianne Laux / Joe Millar prize. She has received support from Bread Loaf Writers’ Workshop and holds an MFA in poetry from Columbia University. She is now a PhD student in English literary arts, concentrating on poetry, at the University of Denver.

Hua Xi (she/they) is a poet and artist. They are currently a Stegner Fellow in poetry at Stanford. Their poems have appeared in the Nation, the New Republic, the Atlantic, American Poetry Review, Poetry Daily and elsewhere. They previously won the Boston Review Poetry Contest and the Eavan Boland Emerging Poet Award from Poetry Ireland. They have also received an NEA Fellowship and were named the 2022 Poet-to-Come Scholar by the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association.

Brooklyn Poets Code of Conduct

Brooklyn Poets will not tolerate any instances of discrimination, harassment or abuse in conjunction with any of our programs. Respect and consideration for others, both within and outside our programs, are core values to be upheld by all participants. Discrimination against and/or harassment of community members on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, national origin, religion, age, marital status, veteran status or any other factor is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Program participants are expected to adhere to all federal, state and local laws and regulations. Should a board or staff member, independent contractor, volunteer or program participant be found to violate any aspect of the organization’s code of conduct, Brooklyn Poets reserves the right to dismiss them from the program. Consequences may include, but not be limited to, dismissal from the current activity, suspension, ineligibility for all future activities, and/or loss of payment or fees. If you have any issues to report, please do not hesitate to contact Executive Director Jason Koo (koo@brooklynpoets.org) or Deputy Director r kay (kay@brooklynpoets.org), and they will get back to you as soon as possible.

COVID-19 Policy

Effective January 8, 2024, all event attendees are required to wear masks due to the current rise in cases in NYC. Masks will be available at the door.

We are implementing this change because, according to the latest data, we are in the second-largest surge in cases of the pandemic. The current metrics available, including NYC wastewater data and the CDC’s Respiratory Virus Activity Levels, both indicate very high levels of COVID and other illnesses that continue to increase.

While your personal risk tolerance may vary, the unmitigated spread of COVID disproportionately affects the most vulnerable in our community—including those who are immunocompromised or don’t have the privilege of taking paid sick days to heal and recover. We hope you’ll join us in taking the actions we can to make our space welcoming to all and to keep each other safe. Please stay home if you are experiencing symptoms, have a positive COVID test or someone close to you has recently tested positive.

While we do our best, Brooklyn Poets cannot guarantee zero risk. A risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in all public settings. By entering the building, students, teachers and other attendees accept the risk of exposure and knowingly waive and release Brooklyn Poets from any liability related to COVID-19.