Eileen G'Sell Featured Reader at Duff's on Monday, May 21

Eileen G'Sell will be one of three featured readers at the •chance operations• reading at Duff's, 392 N. Euclid, on Monday, May 21.

Also featured will be Gabriel Fried and Catherine Rankovic.

Musical guest will be Michael Coleman.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m.; admission is $3.

Advance sign-up for the open-mic following the featured readers is encouraged. Click here to sign-up via e-mail.

Eileen G’Sell’s poetry has been published or is forthcoming in journals such as the American Poetry Journal, Boston Review, Sonora Review, and Harp & Altar. She received an MA from the University of Rochester in 2003 and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2006, where she currently lectures English and serves as assistant editor of publications at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. In 2011 she was recognized by the Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club for Outstanding Service to Mentor St. Louis at Farragut Elementary School.

WHITNEY HOUSTON PRONOUNCED DEAD AT 48
[Young nun latest to self-immolate in Tibet]

Cloud as profile, profile as cloud, so
lovely that even the 1980s glow
like a girl on detox.

Song as skeletal
bathtub treasure, a boy I know, I dream of.
What is it then to be on fire, to rocket

lucky forward? You were sexless
(almost) but when you weren’t
the whole sky sighed soprano.

Body as bureaucracy, body as scandal.
Stay in our arms if you dare.
Your sweat, your smile, your always always

never, all at once.

-- Eileen G'Sell