writing festival

Distinguished alumni Remi Recchia and Roseanna Alice Recchia will read their poetry as features of Bowling Green State University’s Winter Wheat Festival of 2022 from November 10^th– 12^th. 

Remi Recchia

Remi Recchia writes with an unflinchingly graceful and poignant voice that resounds in every line of his poetry. Poems like, “Waking Up from Top Surgery in a Sparse Airbnb Living Room”describe a singular experience with breathtaking emotion: “The hardwood floor/reflects my new watch, large/face swallowing wrist:/a reminder that I am a man.” In other poems, Recchia conveys beautiful intimacy in carefully crafted words, like his poem “Fire Eater, Premolar, Bones,”: “Sometimes when we kiss, I feel your teeth/clink against mine: the quietest champagne/toast. We are not embarrassed anymore when this happens.” His book, Quicksand/Stargazing, a must-read, questions what it means to be a human/animal. 

Remi Recchia is a trans poet and essayist from Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is a Ph.D. candidate in English-Creative Writing at Oklahoma State University. He currently serves as an associate editor for the Cimarron Review and Reviews Editor for Gasher Journal. A four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Remi’s work has appeared or will soon appear in Best New Poets 2021, Columbia Online Journal, Harpur Palate, and Juked, among others. He holds an MFA in poetry from Bowling Green State University. Remi is the author of Quicksand/Stargazing (Cooper Dillon Books, 2021). His chapbook, Sober, is forthcoming with Red Bird Chapbooks. He lives in Stillwater with his wife.

(biographical information courtesy of https://winningwriters.com/people/remi-recchia)

Roseanna Alice Recchia

Roseanna Alice Recchia’s work rings with voice and power. She has a mastery of image that pervades in every line. In “Bones I Get From My Mother,” Recchia describes: “I know my tongue/is a rounded wasp’s nest/with an egg’s gold finish./Everything inside is humming.” Delicate imagery overlaps with powerful messages, while messages can also be found in every well-crafted line. In another poem, “On Being Fat-Shamed While Out with Your Conventionally Attractive Boyfriend,” Recchia delivers a powerful voice by using a simple situation of ordering food at a restaurant. She writes: “This is just one way of practicing grace,/my mother says—people mostly/mean well and are doing their best/and don’t realize how they sound./I try to play that game too.” Recchia work resounds with a vast array of readers. Check out her poetry collection, Hiding in a Thimble, and her chapbook, Imitating Light.

Roseanna Alice Boswell is a queer poet and educator from Upstate New York. She earned her MFA in poetry from Bowling Green State University and is currently working toward her Ph.D. in English-Creative Writing at Oklahoma State University. Her debut poetry collection, Hiding in a Thimble, was released with Haverthorn Press in 2021 and she was the winner of Iron Horse Literary Review’s 2021 Chapbook Competition for her manuscript Imitating Light. Roseanna’s research interests include feminist theory, fat studies, and how these two fields speak to femininity and domesticity. She currently lives, writes, and teaches in Stillwater, OK, with her husband and their two cats, Bean and Blossom.

(biographical information courtesy of https://roseannaaliceboswe.wixsite.com/poet/home)

– Caitlyn Mlodzik, MAR