ONLINE: Jesse Lee Kercheval, Mark Wunderlich

media release: Presented in partnership by Wisconsin Book Festival with the University of Wisconsin Program in Creative Writing, this edition of Wisconsin Wednesdays features UW professor Jesse Lee Kercheval and UW almnus Mark Wunderlich for their newest books, Love Poems & God of Nothingness.  Before the event begins, you will see a countdown and the event image.

About Love Poems: Eight years before Sylvia Plath published Ariel, the Uruguayan poet Idea Vilariño released Poemas de Amor, a collection of confessional, passionate poetry dedicated to the novelist Juan Carlos Onetti. Both of her own merit and as part of the Uruguayan writers group the Generation of ’45—which included Onetti, Mario Benedetti, Amanda Berenguer, and Ida Vitale—Vilariño is an essential South American poet, and part of a long tradition of Uruguayan women poets. Vilariño and Onetti’s love affair is one of the most famous in South American literature. Poemas de Amor is an intense book, full of poems about sexuality and what it means to be a woman, and stands as a testament to both the necessity and the impossibility of love. This translation brings these highly personal poems to English speaking audiences for the first time side-by-side with the original Spanish language versions.

About God of Nothingness: God of Nothingness is a book for those who have seen death up close or even quietly wished for it. In these poems, honed to a devastating edge, Mark Wunderlich asks: How is it we go on as those around us die? And why go on at all? This collection is a brilliant testament to the human ability to make something tough-minded and resilient out of despair and the inevitability of death drawing near. Some poems are moving elegies addressed to mentors, friends, and family recently gone; some contend with the unasked-for responsibilities of inheritance and the family name; others call forth the understanding of being the end of a genetic line; still others remember a rural midwestern coming-of-age and, chillingly, an encounter with the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Present all the while are the prevailing comforts and wonders found in the natural world, work, and the longing for traditions that seem to be passing from our time. Exquisite in its craft and capaciousness, God of Nothingness is an unflinching journal of solitude and survival.

Jesse Lee Kercheval is a poet, writer, and translator specializing in Uruguayan poetry. Her recent books include the poetry collection America that Island off the coast of France, winner of the Dorset Prize, and the story collection Underground Women. Her memoir, Space, was the winner of the Alex Award form the American Library Association. Her latest collection of translations, Love Poems by Idea Vilariño, is a collection of confessional, passionate poetry dedicated to the novelist Juan Carlos Onetti. Vilariño is an essential South American poet, and part of a long tradition of Uruguayan women poets. Vilariño and Onetti’s love affair is one of the most famous in South American literature, and Poemas de Amor is an intense book, full of poems about sexuality and what it means to be a woman. This translation brings these highly personal poems to English speaking audiences for the first time side-by-side with the original Spanish language versions.

Mark Wunderlich’s first book, The Anchorage, was published in 1999 by the University of Massachusetts Press, and received the Lambda Literary Award. His second book, Voluntary Servitude, was published by Graywolf Press in 2004. A third volume of poems titled The Earth Avails, was published in 2014 and received the 2015 Rilke Prize from the University of North Texas and was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award. He has published individual poems in The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Believer, The Paris Review, Slate, Yale Review, The New York Times Magazine, and elsewhere. His work has been included in over forty anthologies and has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. Wunderlich's most recent collection, God of Nothingness, is a book for those who have seen death up close or even quietly wished for it. In these poems, honed to a devastating edge, Wunderlich asks: How is it we go on as those around us die? And why go on at all? This collection is a brilliant testament to the human ability to make something tough-minded and resilient out of despair and the inevitability of death drawing near. Some poems are moving elegies addressed to mentors, friends, and family recently gone; some contend with the unasked-for responsibilities of inheritance and the family name; others call forth the understanding of being the end of a genetic line; still others remember a rural midwestern coming-of-age and, chillingly, an encounter with the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Present all the while are the prevailing comforts and wonders found in the natural world, work, and the longing for traditions that seem to be passing from our time. Exquisite in its craft and capaciousness, God of Nothingness is an unflinching journal of solitude and survival.