Highlighting the daily realities of identity amidst intersections, Alex Wells Shapiro’s Insect Architecture examines the environments – urban, built, literary, implied, or denied – where the poet might find a place to thrive as a mixed person. This debut collection boldly takes on pressing social issues, advocating for the hope promised by density, whether of population or poetic construction. In doing so, Shapiro complicates the boundaries between personal spaces, between individuals and communities. It is within such density – by literal abutments, inside walls, along train tracks, across intersections – that Shapiro finds his place, one that (re)centers the borders, edges, and margins to which so many are now pushed.
Unbound Edition Press, 2022
Gridiron Fables is a set of 16 'erasure fables', one for every week of the NFL season at the time the collection was made. The source text is a weekly montage of 'useless sound' bites from NFL postgame press conferences and analysis, compiled and curated by producer Billy Gil for their cliched, circular meaninglessness for The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, a radio show formerly of ESPN.
Bottlecap Features, 2022