Blog

https://vimeo.com/512335102 It began with Chilean poet, Vincente Huidobro. The opening / preface of his poetic masterpiece, Altazor, launches into a metaphysical cascade of imagery. This was exciting to a young poet like me—at age 29 with some Spanish knowledge and seeking a manifesto to climb (the name “altazor” is a combination of the noun “altura”…… Continue reading Keeping Up With The Huidobros • (New Cinepoem, 2021)

I AM THRILLED to have 5 of my short-short cinepoems selected for the 9th International Video Poetry Festival in Athens, Greece in March 2021 The International Video Poetry Festival is organized and promoted by the Institute for Experimental Arts in cooperation with Void Network. Every year, the committee of the Institute for Experimental Arts selects…… Continue reading SELECTED! 9th International Video Poetry Festival • Athens, Greece (2021)

I’m thrilled to announce that my cinepoem, I AM NOT YOU ARE, has been selected as a finalist for the inaugural Midwest Video Poetry Fest (2020). The details: “We received over 1600 submissions and chose just 36 films to include in our two-day festival, which will take place on November 19 and 20, 2020. At…… Continue reading FINALIST! Midwest Video Poetry Fest

In 2013, I set out to write a poetry book that raged against the poetry MFA machine within the corporate-modeled university system. At that time, it was clear that, over the decade previous, universities, which employed most of the poets and writers whom I knew, were looking to level any sense of artistic freedom and…… Continue reading Poets • (New Cinepoem, 2020) – Featured on Moving Poems.com

I want to extend my sincerest thanks to PEN America for offering me a poet’s COVID-19 relief grant. In late March, I found out that the 6-month contract job I had lined up for the rest of the year (May-Dec) was no more due to COVID. PEN helped immediately with relief, and offered a poet…… Continue reading PEN America COVID-19 Relief Grant

From a new poetry collection, “Between Plague & Kleptocracy: Invented Poetic Creations & Conversations of Seva & Bill”, in which I cross-reference poems between Vsevolod Nekrasov & Bill Knott to serve as medium and “translator” of their posthumous conversations / invented collaborations. The poems are written in the voice / tone / style of both…… Continue reading Scarcely Gilded • (New Cinepoem, 2020)

After Jeffrey Gibson’s exhibition “Like a Hammer” at Seattle Art Museum (2019), I was inspired to continue exploring more deeply the pagan aspects of my Baltic culture. Gibson explores his own Native American heritage: his works include large and mid-sized figurative objects, text-based wall hangings, a selection of illustrious Everlast beaded punching bags, painted works…… Continue reading Push <> Pull • New Cinepoem (2020)

When I wrote my 2013 collection, Professional Poetry, the poems were intended to speak to the value of the working person / poet through the lens of her/his/their “day” jobs and the artist localizing her place in this structure. I examined the commodification of poetry and the absurdity of “mktg” in this space. “I Am…… Continue reading I Am Not You Are • New Cinepoem (2020)

Another poem-turned-cinepoem from Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) (now on Amazon) / Release 12. https://videopress.com/v/1qr0zpMd?preloadContent=metadata

My recent ode to #moscowmitch and his neo-Soviet benefactor, the aluminum magnate. Human Repair Kit

The White Stockings cinepoems will be screened at Chicago Filmmakers 2/1!

New cinepoem from my latest poetry book, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), Secret Airplanes Press, 2018. Read more here.

The talented Elina Krima + inspo for this piece Walter Oltmann First cinepoem of the year explores what it means to wear the suits of natural instinct, still moving through familial separations (especially in light of children actually being cruelly separated from parents). This is perhaps the tip of fear we collectively recycle for the…… Continue reading Caterpillar Suit • New Cinepoem (2020)

I am thrilled to announce that my White Stockings cinepoems—in collaboration with filmmaker & visionary / media artist Tess Cortés—have been selected as finalist for the upcoming Festival Fotogenia in Mexico City this December. FOTOGENIA is the first international film poetry and divergent narratives festival of its kind in Mexico City, promoting a space for alternative conception…… Continue reading Finalist! Cinepoems at Festival Fotogenia, Mexico City

Spoon River Poetry Review has nominated two of my poems from my collection, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Secret Airplanes Press, 2018) for a 2020 IL Arts Council Award! In most countries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is the government department responsible for state diplomacy as well as for providing for the country’s citizens abroad—often…… Continue reading Nominated! IL Arts Council, Two Poems from MOFA

Back in 2005 (?!) I was a 30-something, passionate-struggling-copywriter-poet who began a diary-of-sorts on MySpace about my pending divorce. It was extremely painful, but also liberating and necessary in a very Buddhist-groundless way (in hindsight). Around that time, I was researching family stories passed down through old documents and interviews with my grandmother, and I…… Continue reading Uncovering Old Projects • ÜMWELT

YES! My White Stockings cinepoems will be featured in the Ready Freddy Film Festival August 24 at The Den Theatre. The festival highlights alternative and original work within the Chicago area as well as international work. 

Originally published on The Conversant (March 2016). Interview by poet Virginia Konchan. Conversant: In your own history, as a first-generation American of Lithuanian descent, you describe feeling a degree of alienation from your relatives who were born in Lithuania or Ukraine—or who had been through the war. Is there a healthy form of displacement—at least…… Continue reading Interview, The Conversant (with Virginia Konchan)