Rachel Levitsky (born December 2, 1963) is a feminist avant-garde poet, novelist, essayist, translator, editor, educator, and a founder of Belladonna* Collaborative. She was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and earned an MFA from

Naropa University Naropa University is a private university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa, it is named for the 11th-century Indian Buddhist sage Naropa, an abbot of Nalanda. The university describes itself as B ...

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

. Her first poems were published in ''Clamour'', a magazine edited by

Renee Gladman Renee Gladman (born 1971) is a poet, novelist, essayist, and artist. She has published prose works including the Ravicka series of novels and the crime novel, ''Morelia''; the poetry collection, ''Calamities''; and a monograph of drawings, ''Prose ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

during the late 1990s. Levitsky has since written three books, nine chapbooks, and been translated into five languages.

Writing

Levitsky's first book, ''Under the Sun'', was published in 2002 by the New York City-based Futurepoem. The book was reviewed by Dale Smith for Jacket and also briefly in Publishers Weekly. Her second book, ''Neighbor'' (

Ugly Duckling Presse Ugly Duckling Presse is an American nonprofit art and publishing collective based in Brooklyn, New York City founded in 1993 by Matvei Yankelevich as a college zine. It publishes poetry, translations, lost works, and artist's books. A micro pre ...

, 2009), was described by ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

'' as "a decisively innovative book". It mingles intimate personal details with reflections on the US's role in the world. ''The Story of My Accident is Ours'' (Futurepoem, 2013), Levitsky's third book, was described by poet

Lyn Hejinian Lyn Hejinian (born May 17, 1941) is an American poet, essayist, translator and publisher. She is often associated with the Language poets and is known for her landmark work ''My Life'' (Sun & Moon, 1987, original version Burning Deck, 1980), a ...

as "a revolutionary's tale, and, like all such tales, one without end." It was praised by Michael Leong at

Hyperallergic ''Hyperallergic'' is an online arts magazine, based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded by the art critic Hrag Vartanian and his husband Veken Gueyikian in October 2009, the site describes itself as a "forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking ...

as a rare example of high-quality public poetry, with its focus on WTO protestors and its repeated use of the pronoun "we". Adam Fitzgerald in ''The American Reader'' called it "a gorgeous book that feels to me so personal precisely because of its ruthlessly anonymous, abstract, desperate thoughts". At The Constant Critic, Sueyuen Juliette Lee said that its "stakes feel infinitely high, the writing slowly spinning towards finding a way forward, a means for understanding and navigating our new situation, this post-Accident space." Levitsky's work has appeared in ''Bombay Gin'', ''

The Brooklyn Rail ''The Brooklyn Rail'' is a publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics. The ''Rail'' is based out of Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, criti ...

'', ''EOAGH'', ''Future Perfect: An Anthology of the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division'', ''

Puerto del Sol ''Puerto del Sol'' is a non-profit literary magazine run by faculty and graduate students from the MFA program in Creative Writing Triple Canopy (online magazine), Triple Canopy'', ''e-consulta'', ''

Gay City News ''Gay City News'' (stylized as ''gcn'') is a free weekly newspaper based in New York City focusing on local and national issues relating to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. It was founded in 1994 as ''Lesbian Gay New Y ...

'', ''

'', ''BOMB Magazine'', ''Jacket2'', ''

Fence A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its whole length. ...

'', and others.

Awards

Levitsky's awards and recognitions include: Writing Fellow at University of Pennsylvania during 2008–2009, a "Kickass Press Award to ''Belladonna*'' Books and Founder Rachel Levitsky" from Vida: Women in Literary Arts in April 2015, and ''

Velvetpark ''Velvetpark: Dyke Culture in Bloom'' is a lesbian and feminist arts and culture American website that regularly features music, literature, theater, fine arts, film, television, and social activism as it impacts queer culture. ''Velvetpark'' a ...

s Top 25 Queer Women of 2015. She has had artist residencies at

Vermont Studio Center The Vermont Studio Center (VSC) is a non-profit arts organization located in the town of Johnson, Vermont. It conducts the largest fine arts and writing residency program in the United States, with a significant population of international artis ...

, Montalvo Center for the Arts, and

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowell ...

. Levitsky has also received grants from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council,

Council of Literary Magazines and Presses The Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) is an American organization of independent literary publishers and magazines. It was founded in 1967 by Robie Macauley, Reed Whittemore (''The Carleton Miscellany,'' ''The New Republic''); Jule ...

, and

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

Work

Throughout her career, Levitsky has served as an educator at

Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic ...

, the

Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics is a school of Naropa University, located in Boulder, Colorado, United States. It was founded in 1974 by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman, as part of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s 100-year experim ...

at Naropa, and Pratt Institute, where she teaches today. She has served as a judge for the

Millay Colony Millay Arts, formerly the Millay Colony for the Arts, is an arts community offering residency-retreats and workshops in Austerlitz, New York, and free arts programs in local public schools. Housed on the former property of feminist/activist poet ...

, the Poets House Fellowship, the Wonder Book Prize, the Workspace selection for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the Radcliffe Fellowship. Other positions have included: Segue Series Curator, The Poetry Project Monday Night Series Coordinator, and Conference Committee Chair for "Advancing Feminist Poetics and Activism". Levitsky has given writing workshops at

The Poetry Project The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church was founded in 1966 at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery in the East Village, Manhattan, East Village of Manhattan by, among others, the poet and translator Paul Blackburn (U.S. poet), Paul Blackburn. It has bee ...

, Naropa,

Poets House Poets House is a national literary center and poetry library based in New York City. It contains more than 70,000 volumes of poetry, and is free and open to the public. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, they temporarily suspended operations in Nov ...

, Montalvo Center for the Arts, and more. She has performed readings around the world and given lectures at AWP,

Cal Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

, Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop,

University of Montreal A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

Eastern Michigan University Eastern Michigan University (EMU, Eastern Michigan or simply Eastern), is a public research university in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Founded in 1849 as Michigan State Normal School, the school was the fourth normal school established in the United Sta ...

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

CUNY , mottoeng = The education of free people is the hope of Mankind , budget = $3.6 billion , established = , type = Public university system , chancellor = Fél ...

Meiji University , abbreviated as Meiji (明治) or Meidai (明大'')'', is a private research university located in Chiyoda City, the heart of Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1881 as Meiji Law School (明治法律学校, ''Meiji Hōritsu Gakkō'') by three Meiji-er ...

in Tokyo,

The Center for Book Arts Center for Book Arts (CBA) is a non-profit arts organization, founded in 1974. It is the first organization of its kind in the United States dedicated to contemporary interpretations of the book as an art object while preserving traditional pract ...

, and many others. She has also appeared in several exhibitions and events throughout NYC and the U.S.

Belladonna* Collaborative

Belladonna* was created in 1999 as a salon and reading series at Bluestocking's Women's Bookstore in New York City's Lower East Side. The very first reading, featuring Marcella Durand and Akilah Oliver, was recorded by Levitsky on a handheld tape recorder and is now archived on PennSound. The feminist avant-garde collective began making chaplets of the readers' work during June 2000 in collaboration with Boog Literature. The chaplet series has continued, today reaching #215 and growing. A number of the first chaplets have been digitally uploaded on their website as well. The collective has also since published many full-length collaborative and solo books by feminist experimental writers. Belladonna* is organized in a French Feminist style, which promotes horizontal leadership rather than a top-down hierarchy. The collective describes their mission as an attempt "to promote the work of women writers who are adventurous, experimental, politically involved, multi-form, multicultural, multi-gendered, impossible to define, delicious to talk about, unpredictable and dangerous with language".About Page for Belladonna*
/ref> They continue to expand and further this model with works and collaborations that cross genre, gender, class, age, and continents.

Office of Recuperative Strategies

In 2010, she and writer

Christian Hawkey Christian Hawkey (born 1969), is an American poet, translator, editor, activist, and educator. Life and work Hawkey was born in Hackensack, New Jersey. He is the author of several books of poetry, including ''Sonne from Ort'', ''Ventrakl,'' ''C ...

founded the Office of Recuperative Strategies (OoRS). It is a research and pedagogical laboratory that promotes a concept of cultural sustainability and radical recuperation toward possible futures that invent new fields of vitality, desire, hybridity, activism, and dwelling. OoRS teaches semester long classes at Pratt Institute and conducts shorter workshops, walks, and urban inversions at a range of places and situations from the superfund site of The Gowanus Canal, to the elite institution such as Harvard University and The University of Amsterdam, to dystopian urban transit hubs such as Alexanderplatz and the Holland Tunnel.

Publications

Books

*''The Story of My Accident is Ours'', Futurepoem Books, 2013 *''Neighbor'', Ugly Duckling Presse, 2009 *''Under the Sun'', Futurepoem Books, 2003

Chapbooks

*''Hopefully, The Island: Poem in Collaboration with the Artist Susan Bee'', Belladonna* Collaborative, 2016 *''Dehors (ou secours et cinéma)'', translated from the American by Pascal Poyet, contrat maint, 2014 *''Room Service'', Belladonna Books, 2013 *''Renoemos'', Delete Press, 2010 *''Dearly 3, 4, 6'', Duration Press, 2005 *''The Adventures of Yaya and Grace'', Potes & Poets, 1999 *''Dearly'', a+bend, 1999 *''Cartographies of Error'', Leroy, 1999 *''2(1x1)Portraits'', Baksun Books, 1998

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levitsky, Rachel 1963 births Living people American LGBT writers Writers from New York City American women poets Naropa University alumni 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers