Robin Lee Jordan

[robinleejordan]

“I love responding to art with art”: 5 Questions with Robin Lee Jordan - Just Buffalo Literary Center | Buffalo, NY

If you know Writing Center Coordinator Robin Lee Jordan, you know she's a person who supports, uplifts, and celebrates young writers every day at JBWC. We're excited to turn the tables today and celebrate Robin's writing and the recent release of her chapbook THEY ATE EACH OTHER UP.

Thank you JB! 

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Celebrate the only Friday the 13th of 2022, and my chapbook THEY ATE EACH OTHER UP (Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs). A poetry reading set to original horror movie soundtracks. A monster conjuring by artist Joshua Nickerson. A goth dance party. 

Special guests: Richie Wills, Jazz De Nero, Joe Hall, Cheryl Quimba, Meghann Boltz, Dana Venerable and (B)uffalo (A)rt (D)ispensary. 

Soundtracks by Adam Drury, Evan Courtin, Katie Weissman, Kalen Rodriguez, Tia Brown, Andrew Auble, Jesse Miller and Megan Kyle. 

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THEY ATE EACH OTHER UP! A chapbook written while watching horror movies and featuring original artwork by Joshua Nickerson. Made into object Halloween 2021 by Brenda Iijima with Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, and designed by Nicholas DeBoer. Snag one here: https://yoyolabs.com/jordan.html

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And just before the decade came to a close, I got my first (micro)chapbook published! It’s a little side-project titled Morning Blessing Poems inspired by a daily writing ritual prompt from Mathias Svalina. It’s bundled with 2 other poets as part of Foundlings’ cool Strays project and can be bought via their website. So grateful to Aidan Ryan for asking for these and so grateful I was able to tinker them into real existence! 

Fun fact: I collaged my cover using text I found about how cats where seen as spawns of the devil. 

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Excited to have selections from They Ate Each Other Up and Diary of my corpse at various stages published in P-QUEUE, an annual journal of poetry and poetics published out of the University at Buffalo Poetics Program. Many thanks to editor, Allison Cardon! The theme was RUIN. 

We also had an amazing RUIN-themed event at Sugar City featuring poets Nina Vega-Westhoff, Zack Brown, Dana Venerable, and myself. Plus a performance by Senso di Voce. It was ruinous and magical. 

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Woot! Check out some new poems and my first attempts at lil’ poem films in Issue 6 of Reality Beach!

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Recent readings! They were supes fun.

Top: Skyler Jaye Rutkowski’s chapbook release!

Bottom: Reading at the Allen Street Dress Shop for a Peach Mag event featuring some of my fave poets in all the land: young writers from the Just Buffalo Writing Center!

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The Public asked us where Buffalo is now.

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I have 3 million Instagram accounts now!

1 to share my goings about and creations as robinleejordan.

+

1 for the buffaloartidispensary.

+

1 for my pup/bff/cuddlebuddy Prince David Bowie Stardust as space.oddities.

=

3,000,000,000

[robinleejordan]

Didn’t destroy any art when hooping while poeming + swearing at the Burchfield Penney Art Center during their Entropy: PoetExpo event in November but kind of wish I had planted a phony art piece and knocked it over “on accident” just for fun! You can check out a hunk of my whole, awkward performance here.

[robinleejordan]

With You: Withdrawn Poetry of the #MeToo Movement is out and brilliantly fierce! My poem/lyric essay “Things I don’t remember” has finally found its forever home. A million thanks to Peach Mag and editor, Rachelle Toarmino.

Let me tell you why this picture is perfect:

1) One reason I adopted Bowie (other than that face I mean LOOK AT HIM) is that I wanted a large dog so I could feel safer walking around at night while happening to be a woman...who loves to walk around at night.

2) The blanket was made by my amazing grandma who has overcome all the shitty things that so many women have had to overcome and who has helped to make me the strong woman I am today.

3) In the background on my bookshelf, you can see the book Ventriloquisms by my sister-writer Jacyln Watterson, a collection of short stories featuring ferocious women that starts with the line “We are a band of girls, and we run the sidewalks.”

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Oh hey I got a poem in the Buffalo News today! Thanks to Robert D. Pohl for throwing her in there to help spread the word about Entropy: The PoetExpo, to Dream Pop Press for first publishing it, and, of course, to The Walking Dead for being on in the background while I wrote it. (Because if you write a poem while watching garbage tv it doesn't count.)

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One week until poetry stomps its pretty little shoes all over the Burchfield Penney! Stitch your heart back together a bit by hearing some amazing JBWC poets, then maybe stick around to hear me use poems as an excuse to swear a bunch in a fancy gallery! Thank you Paige Melin for putting this together!

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Check out the mysterious meat hook of a pie, Issue 15 of Dreginald, to remind yourself how it could probably be Halloween all of the time and to read a handful of poems from my (currently unpublished) chapbook THEY ATE EACH OTHER UP.  (Because sometimes you can only get yourself to write poems while watching horror movies.)

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With You: Withdrawn Poetry of the #MeToo Movement features fourteen poets who withdrew work from journals and publishing houses following the #MeToo movement's exposure of literary gatekeepers. With an introductory essay by Liz Bowen that was originally withdrawn from publication with Boston Review, this anthology serves as an example of alternatives to publishing with known abusers and those who protect them.All profits will be donated to TIME'S UP Legal Defense Fund. Edited by Rachelle Toarmino Published by Peach Mag Cover art: "Invisible Adversary" by Lisa Foster

So excited that my lyric essay “Things I don’t remember” is being republished in Peach Mag’s new collection! Spent many years on this little beast and am so glad it has a safe home. A trillion thanks to Rachelle and Peach Mag for this labor of love!