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Joanna fuhrman

Poet, Educator

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eoagh
Verse
PuppyFlowers
The Brooklyn Rail
Shark
Academy of American Poets
Poetry Foundation
Turntable + Blue Light
La Fovea
Academy of American Poets
Jacket
Trickhouse
The Germ
New American Writing
Scapegoat Review
Titanic Operas
Paperbag
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Joanna Fuhrman Poetry

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Interviews

Freud in Brooklyn

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Joanna Fuhrman

is the author of four books of poetry, Pageant (Alice James Books 2009), Moraine (Hanging Loose Press 2006), Ugh Ugh Ocean (Hanging Loose Press 2006) and Freud in Brooklyn (Hanging Loose Press 2000). She is the poetry editor for Boog City , and co-poetry editor of Ping Pong. She served as the Monday night coordinator for the poetry readings at the Poetry Project at Saint Mark’s Church from 2001-2003 and the Wednesday night coordinator from 2010-2011. She is a graduate of the University of Washington’s MFA program, which awarded her the Academy of American Poets Prize and the Joan Grayson Award. Her books have been taught in writing classes at the University of Louisiana, NYU, The University of Pittsburgh, The Writers Studio and many others. She has read her work at colleges, literary centers, bookstores, and galleries across the country. Her poems have appeared in many journals, including New American Writing, The Believer, Fence , Lit , Quarterly West , Conduit , a nd American Letters and Commentary , and in anthologies published by Soft Skull Press, HarperCollins, New York University, and Carnegie Mellon University. Her poem “Stagflation” won a 2011 Pushcart prize, She has also written short plays that were produced at La MaMa and the Bleeker Street Theater. Her essays on teaching poetry to young people appear regularly in Teachers & Writers magazine.

Joanna has been teaching for more than fourteen years. She has taught creative writing at the University of Washington, Duke/Rutgers Summer Program in Berlin, the Cooper Union Saturday Outreach Program, William Patterson’s Writers Conference, and the Poetry Project at Saint Mark’s Church, as well as through Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, LEAP, the Waterways Project, Teachers & Writers , Poets House and CEPP . She currently teaches poetry at Rutgers University and in public schools. She regularly runs independent poetry workshops for advanced students and tutors students with learning differences in study skills and academic writing. Please contact her directly to book her for readings or workshops. She lives with her husband the playwright Robert Kerr.

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books

click on cover to learn more

Freud in Brooklyn

Hanging Loose Press

2000

Ugh Ugh Ocean

Hanging Loose Press

2003

Moraine

Hanging Loose Press

2006

The Emotive Function

Least Weasel Press

2011

Pageant

Alice James Books

2009 (Winner

of the

Kinereth Gensler Prize)

The Th

Pageant

"“Joanna Fuhrman is a witty visionary for our virtual age. Her poems invite you not just to read but to become immersed in their delightfully protean postmodern landscapes. The work is both exotic and mundane, retro and futuristic at the same time. Pulsating with surround-sound and a panoply of ‘neon fluid’ special effects, this book startles as it entertains.”"

—--Elaine Equi

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"Forget New York poetry. Forget Language poetry. Forget desires for a totalizing poetics. Fuhrman is a leader in the particular, in 'infra-surrealism.' She taboos nothing; no form impedes her complete wit. This full poetry is not only 'feminine, marvelous, and tough,' but subtle, searching, and wounded—sexual, social, and smart. Fuhrman celebrates new truth-telling, an art of the spectacular pageant."

—--David Shapiro

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buy from:

Pageant, Alice James Books

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"The poems in Joanna Fuhrman's MORAINE are just as layered and organic as the landforms alluded to in the title. Fuhrman sifts through the debris of modern day life and makes beautiful new sculptures with the rubble she finds. At home with the narrative, collage, and abstract leaps, her poetry is as unpredictable as it is inevitable."

-Denise Duhamel

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buy from:

Moraine, Hanging Loose Press

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"Joanna Fuhrman's Ugh Ugh Ocean is virtuostic, tender and sardonic. She fashions an absurdist world "as if (she) could create a new/idea of space, separate from our need/ to live in it and think we know it." Her images do not merely dazzle; they are confluent with the effect of each individual poem, and in turn the entire collection. "This mighty language" that she creates is what art was originally meant to be--a gift.”"

-- Noelle Kocot

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"“a remarkable book, even more challenging and funny than Fuhrman’s first. book" --

—Cecily Iddings, Pleiades Book Review

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“"..when Fuhrman writes of love found and love lost incredibly touching. Ugh Ugh Ocean is a gift, so dive in!"

…-- Bill Kushner, rattapallax fusebox

“"...Fuhrman has the rare ability to create images that merge the yearnings of the heart and the yearnings of philosophy, and the result...can be intensely moving.” "

--– Anne-Marie Levine, American Book Review

buy:

Ugh Ugh Ocean, Hanging Loose Press

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"Joanna Fuhrman's is a starkly original voice, vivid with the tensions of wit and empathy, sly incongruity and intellectual passion. FREUD IN BROOKLYN marks a stunning debut."--Linda Bierds

"Joanna Fuhrman's FREUD IN BROOKLYN is rich in content, charged with fresh energy and fresh experience. Her poetry very often starts with a particular situation and then explores it many different ways. She is entertaining, ironic and often, quite wise."--Lars Gustafsson

“There is an uncanny precision to Joanna Fuhrman’s poetics…that results in an elevated awareness…. Each poem presents a view of the world so raw and immediate it has the eerie luridness of hyper-realistic art…. Her use of image, sound, and semantic nuance warms every page with the intricate brocade of human experience.”

– John Olson, Rain Taxi

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An “"impressive first collection…. Ms. Fuhrman’s poems show that when the poet has fun writing, readers will have fun, too."”

–--David Lehman, The Wall Street Journal

buy from:

Freud in Brooklyn, Hanging Loose Press

Text Lines Text Lines Tutor Joanna Fuhrman: Writing and Study Skills TutorI specialize in helping high school and middle school students with all stages of the writing process, reading comprehension, study and test-taking skills, time management and organization. I believe in helping students develop skills so that they are able to work independently. For three years, I designed the curriculum for and taught English and social studies to a young teenager who was being home-schooled. We studied American history, world history and comparative religion and read a wide range of literature from Shakespeare to Richard Wright. She is now at Yale. My life as a tutor started in Seattle in 1998, where I was trained by the director of Associates in Tutoring and Academic Consultation. I have since tutored students from many of the best high schools in the New York City area, including the Brooklyn Friends School, Fieldston, Dalton, Calhoun, Nightingale and the Town School. I have also taken workshops on working with students with learning disabilities at the Churchill School. I am especially interested in helping students develop their personal statements for their college applications.I specialize in helping students with learning disabilities, including dyslexia and ADHD. When appropriate, I work with learning specialists and schools to develop goals for students. I have helped many students organize their writing and ideas and develop their skills in abstract thinking. My patience and sense of humor make me a natural tutor and help make learning enjoyable. I have also taught English composition at NYU and the University of Washington. In addition to tutoring, I currently work as a creative writing teacher at Rutgers University and in the public schools.I usually work with students in their homes, but I have also met students in private school buildings, public libraries and coffee shops. I am willing to travel to locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn, as well as parts of Queens.If you are interested in learning more, email me and we can set up a time to talk on the phone.--Joanna
Workshops Poetry Workshops in Schools, Libraries and Community CentersI have been a visiting writer/teaching artist in the New York City Schools since 2000. I specialize in programs that stress the idea of poetry as serious play and incorporate visual art and music into the lessons. Following the Teachers & Writers method made famous by Kenneth Koch, I start most lessons by bringing in a poem by a published writer and having students write collaboratively. I believe the best poems often arise from an active engagement with great literature, and through the writing exercises and prompts, students soon discover that poetry is approachable and fun. Often at the end of a program, an anthology of the students’ work will be produced, or students may create handmade books of their own poems. I am happy to conduct programs of any duration, from a one-day workshop to a year-long residency.I have worked with students of all ages, from first-graders to senior citizens, and love to collaborate with classroom teachers to integrate their curriculum goals into my teaching. I have taught poetry programs in all five boroughs of New York City, as well as in Connecticut and Westchester County, and have worked with gifted students and special education students. In addition to poetry writing, I have taught creative nonfiction, fiction writing and playwriting and am able to design a multi-genre curriculum to fit a given school’s needs. Organizations I have worked with include Teachers & Writers Collaborative, Poets House, the Waterways Project, LeAp and CEPP. For six years, I taught creative writing at Science Skills Center High School in Brooklyn, where I worked with classroom teachers and taught an after-school program. I have also led professional development workshops on integrating poetry and visual arts and on poetry and scale, and have developed a lecture for senior citizens on how to read contemporary or “difficult” poetry. My essays on teaching the work of Jayne Cortez and teaching poetry to architecture students appear in Teachers & Writers magazine. Contact me for more information or to set up a program at your school or community. I am open to teaching students directly or leading a professional development workshop. Fees depend on the situation and location. You can work with me directly or through the following organizations:Teachers & WritersCEPPPoets HouseHere’s a sample group poem from a third-grade-class:Poetry IsPoetry is periwinkle ice cream. Poetry is a cup of hot chocolate. Poetry is like teachers floating in the air.Poetry is like a black mountain crying for help.Poetry is a shiny sunflower sitting in the garden. Poetry is a sprinkle rainbow and a colorful penguin that waddles around the North Pole. Poetry is a lion named Larry eating a leprechaun.Poetry is a monkey named Michael eating a mackerel. Poetry is a girl with a big fat lollipop.Poetry is a 100-petaled flower.Poetry is a teacher calling my name to be called.Poetry is a big golden heart where there is candy.Poetry is a penguin looking for its mother.Poetry is a worm that wiggles through the soil. Poetry is like paper dancing.Poetry is paper floating in the air.Poetry is like a red and orange shooting flame.Poetry is like a diamond saying, “Come on, Lynahia, let’s party.”Poetry is like people saying, “I am rich and not you.”Poetry is a pretty girl laughing.Poetry is dresses flying in the sky.Poetry is the purple sky.Poetry is a purple ice cream.Poetry is my purple dream.Poetry is everything that we see, hear, smell, touch and taste.Poetry is every person in the world.Without poetry, there would be no world. --Complied by lines from Ms. Park’s 3rd grade class at P.S. 153

Joanna Fuhrman

Poet, Educator

adults Poetry Workshops for AdultsSince 2002, I have taught small private poetry workshops for adults in the New York City area. Students have included recent college graduates, published poets with MFAs and/or books, artists from other disciplines new to poetry, English teachers and retirees. What unites these students is a willingness to experiment and expand how they think about poetry. The emphasis is on generating and revising new work, and classes involve optional assignments in response to handouts and discussions of published poetry, in-class writing games, and critiques of student work. A typical workshop meets weekly for eight to ten sessions at my apartment in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, and I hold two to three workshops each year. There is a limit of six students, and I try to keep the workshop reasonably priced. At the end of the workshop, we usually have a group reading at a local bar or cafe. I also provide beverages and snacks (usually popcorn and cookies) each week. Please email me with questions. If you are interested in my private workshop, I may ask you to send 3-4 pages of poetry to apply for the class.Here's a link with more information about the next class: http://newyork.craigslist.org/brk/grp/2702641517.htmlThe next session will be Sunday afternoons starting in February.Individual ConsultationsI also work with students individually for an hourly rate or an agreed-upon fee. I have helped students organize and edit poetry manuscripts, as well as develop individual poems. In addition to working with students in person, I have also worked with poets over email, sending assignments based on published poems and providing commentary on their work. My discussion with Susanna Fry about the process was published in How2. Here are some quotes from people who have taken my workshops in the past:When it comes to poetry, Joanna is one of the best-read people I know, and she brings her extensive knowledge and experience to her workshops. In Joanna'’s workshops, I’'ve had the chance to discover the thrill of practicing poetry as an evolving, multi-step process, drawing on a range of games and exercises to generate material. The quality of the homemade popcorn she serves is second only to that of the in-class discussions. These are an invaluable opportunity to get thoughtful critique on drafts, and with that feedback, I’'ve been able to turn many rough pieces into polished, publishable poems. Joanna’s workshops are a fantastic opportunity to get a lot of work done and fine-tune your craft in a friendly and supportive environment, which is why I’'ve kept coming back to them over the past eight years.--Lauren R.Joanna's workshop is fun and inspired, helping me write new and revise old poems.--—Chris S.Joanna's class helped me to hone my skills as a writer. Her assignments were fun and spot-on; always a challenge. I am taking her class again because I enjoyed her laid-back teaching approach, the in-class projects, and the amount of knowledge I came away with. She also carefully chose poems for class, which I immensely enjoyed. I highly recommend her.—--Erica L.
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Some Reviews and Essays

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Selected Introductions to Readings at the Poetry Project at Saint Mark's

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Upcoming readings

Upcoming ReadingsThursday, January 12th 8 P.M.Couplet Reading Serieshttp://coupletreadingseries.tumblr.com/with Rick Synder and Hanna Andrewsand music afterat The Delancey168 Delancey Street, New York, NY 10002(free)Wednesday, April 25thBrooklyn Public Library Main BranchThis reading celebrates the publication of Hanging Loose magazine's 100th issue. Now in its 46th year, the magazine has presented some 10,000 pages of poetry, fiction and art. HL book authors reading from their work include Harvey Shapiro, Kimiko Hahn, Elizabeth Swados, Jayne Cortez, Charles North, Jack Anderson, Joan Larkin, William Corbett, Mark Pawlak, Tony Towle, Donna Brook, Dick Lourie, Gerald Fleming, Keith Taylor, Indran Amirthanayagam, Michael Lally, Terence Winch, Michael Cirelli, Gary Lenhart, Joel Lewis, Joanna Fuhrman, Sharon Mesmer, D. Nurkse, Ed Friedman, Chuck Wachtel, Larry Zirlin, Mark Statman, Christien Gholson, Rosalind Brackenbury, Bill Zavatsky, and Robert Hershon.

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