Our audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.
Today, Roberto Montes reads from his debut collection I Don't Know Do You, which is forthcoming from Ampersand Books in March. His chapbook, HOW TO BE SINCERE IN YOUR POETRY WORKSHOP, is now available in full at http://napuniversityonline.com His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from ILK, Interrupture, DEATH HUMS, The New Megaphone and elsewhere. He lives in Queens and reads poetry for Sixth Finch.
Click on the Soundcloud link to experience Roberto Montes as he reads a poem from I Don't Know Do You...
The word on I Don't Know Do You:
Roberto Montes is a poet of immense passion. He’s not scared to be sad (“In space no one can hear you be a better person”), but he’s not scared to be gentle, either (“Sometimes I bend a little sorry/by how easy it is…As if you weren’t already/reading this aloud/to the man quietly/removing his socks”). I am finding that this juxtaposition, this honesty about the world and self, is almost impossible to find in contemporary poetry. This book needs to be read. It needs to be carried around in messenger bags and purses. Lines like “I am continually inspired/by men who are not afraid/to do pushups in the middle of our conversation” should be tweeted, tumbled, text messaged to friends and strangers. This book is a love letter to love and an ode to the pain it can cause. It’s about being young and lost but how maybe that is not such a bad thing.
Share this book with someone pretty. Plant it in the forest and watch it grow a heart in the shape of a heart. *lifted from Ampersand's website with love
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