Book Launch: Abi Pollokoff

Join us for the launch of Abi Pollokoff's debut book of poetry, night myths • • before the body, on Saturday, May 3 at 144 Montague Street! Doors will open at 6 PM and readings will begin at 7 PM. Sarah Suhr, jason b. crawford, Anastacia-Reneé, C.R. Grimmer & Rob Arnold will open for Pollokoff. Book signing (and cake!) to follow.

Note that by attending this event, you agree to abide by our code of conduct and COVID-19 policy. All in-person attendees for events are currently required to wear masks (regardless of vaccination status) except readers at a safe distance on stage. We will have masks available. 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 night myths • • before the body

night myths • • before the body is an ecofeminist interrogation of identity, vulnerability, and relationship that dismantles the boundaries between the body and the natural world to reclaim expressions of power and womanhood.

What are the stories we tell our bodies about our bodies? What are the myths we tell ourselves about ourselves? night myths • • before the body illuminates the dichotomies contemporary women grapple with every day: identity and expectation, self-preservation and doubt, freedom and entrapment, wildness and cultivation. By dissolving the boundaries between the body and the natural world, Abi Pollokoff's evocative debut deconstructs the essence of womanhood, carrying the reader into a communing at once vulnerable and insistent. night myths • • before the body is a resounding interrogation of being human in a posthuman world.

About the Author

Abi Pollokoff is a writer, editor and book artist. Her debut poetry collection is night myths • • before the body (Red Hen Press, 2025). TriQuarterly nominated her work for a Pushcart, and her poems can also be found in such journals as the Seventh Wave, Denver Quarterly and Radar, where she was a finalist for the Coniston Prize. Recipient of the 2012 Anselle M. Larson/Academy of American Poets Prize, Abi has been supported by AWP, the Jack Straw Cultural Center, Hugo House, The Seattle Review of Books, and other organizations. She has taught writing and poetry at the college level and is the former events manager for Open Books: A Poem Emporium, content director for Killer Visual Strategies (now Material), and associate editor at Pelican Publishing Company. She now serves as the managing editor for Poetry Northwest Editions and works in publishing. Abi holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Washington and a BA in English, French, and Italian from Tulane University. Find her at abipollokoff.com.

About the Opening Acts

Sarah Suhr (formerly Sarah Jones) is a Seattle-based poet and marketing director in the tech industry. She is the author of the chapbook Lies I Tell Myself (dancing girl press & studio, 2018). Sarah has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes and featured in Poets & Writers Magazine and on NPR. Her poetry has appeared in New Ohio Review, The Normal School, American Literary Review, Entropy magazine, Maudlin House, Raven Chronicles, City Arts Magazine, Yes, Poetry, and many other places. Sarah served as an editorial assistant at Poetry Northwest magazine for many years and holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from Antioch University, Los Angeles.

jason b. crawford (They/He), born in Washington, DC and raised in Lansing, MI, is the author of Year of the Unicorn Kidz. Their second collection, YEET!, is the winner of the Omnidawn 1st/2nd Book Prize and will be published Fall 2025. They have been published in POETRY Magazine, Academy of American Poets, Cincinnati Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, RHINO Poetry, among others. They are a 2023 Emerging Writers Fellow for Lambda Literary and hold their MFA in Poetry from The New School.

Anastacia-Reneé is an award-winning writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, TEDx speaker, playwright, and podcaster. She is the author of the debut fiction-hybrid book, Here in the (Middle) of Nowhere, and two books of poetry, Side Notes from the Archivist and (v.). Her mixed media art has been exhibited at the Frye Art Museum and her installation, (Don’t Be Absurd): Alice in Parts, was selected by NBC News as part of the list of “Queer Artist of Color Dominate 2021’s Must See LGBTQ Art Shows.” She has received fellowships and residencies from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, VONA, The White Center, Mineral School, Ragdale, 4Culture, and The New Orleans Writers Residency. Reneé’s poetry, fiction and nonfiction has been anthologized and published widely.

C.R. Grimmer (they/them) is an award-winning poet, scholar, and digital humanities educator whose work bridges poetry, public scholarship, and literary criticism. They are the author of The Lyme Letters: Poems (Winner of the Walt McDonald First Book Award), the chapbook O–(ezekiel's wife), and the peer-reviewed, OEA, multimedia book Poets as Public Scholars: Activist Poets in an Age of Social Media (forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press). Their poetry has been a finalist for Best New American Poets and their poems, installations, and essay writing appear in leading venues and journals, such the Seattle Convention Center, POETRY Magazine, Prairie Schooner, FENCE Magazine, and The Comparatist.

Rob Arnold is a CHamoru poet, essayist, and arts leader whose work has appeared in Ploughshares, the Rumpus, Gettysburg Review, Poetry Northwest, Hyphen, RED INK, Harpur Palate and Solstice, among others, and has been anthologized in New CHamoru Literature and Na'huyong: An Anthology of CHamoru Literature. His poems and essays have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and have received support from the Somerville Arts Council, the Jack Straw Cultural Center, and Artist Trust. He lives in New York City where he serves as executive director of Poets House.

COVID-19 Policy

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

The current metrics available, including NYC wastewater data and the CDC’s Respiratory Virus Activity Levels, both indicate high levels of COVID and other illnesses. While your personal risk tolerance may vary, the unmitigated spread of COVID and other respiratory illnesses disproportionately affects the most vulnerable in our community—including those who are immunocompromised or don’t have the privilege of 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.

We strongly encourage daytime visitors and workshop attendees to wear masks. Workshop instructors may choose to enforce a more stringent policy at their own discretion. Additionally, workshop participants may be required to wear masks as an accessibility accommodation for other participants.

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.

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 anyone on our Conduct Committee and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Executive Director r kay: kay@brooklynpoets.org
Board President Eugenia Leigh: eugenia.leigh@gmail.com
Board Director Miller Oberman: miller.oberman@gmail.com