"I'm interested in writing that sees the act of reading as an act of thinking, as an act of meaning-making...as something less tidy than what the lyric form has traditionally offered."
Poet Kevin Varrone (b. 1970) has worked for over 10 years on a multiple-book project entitled g-point Almanac, which includes chapbooks published by ixnay press and Ugly Duckling Presse. His most recent publication, Eephus, is the fourth book in the project—a series of prose poems centered around baseball, written in a style that Varrone describes as "research lyric," synthesizing historical anecdotes, slowly unfolding narratives, and language experimentation. Throughout the poems, the overarching theme of baseball serves as an entryway for considering the nature of fatherhood, as well as ideas of place, identity, and inheritance. Varrone holds an MA in creative writing from Temple University, where he currently teaches literature and writing. Since receiving his Pew Fellowship, he has collaborated with a programmer and visual artist on "Box Score: An Autobiography," an app for iPad and iPhone that features poems from Eephus paired with collages. Varrone spoke on the topic of "Poetic Explorations" at the 2013 Poets Forum in New York City.
