Spencer Madsen is a contemporary

American poet The poets listed below were either born in the United States or else published much of their poetry while living in that country. A B C D E F G H I–J K L M N O P Q *George Quasha (born 1942 in poetry, 1942) R ...

and

small press A small press is a publisher with annual sales below a certain level or below a certain number of titles published. The terms "indie publisher" and "independent press" and others are sometimes used interchangeably. Independent press is general ...

publisher. He is a Brooklyn-based contemporary writer as well as the founding editor of Sorry House, an independent publishing press 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 ...

. Madsen is part of a genre of independent poetry that is unique in its association with the

New Sincerity New Sincerity (closely related to and sometimes described as synonymous with post-postmodernism) is a trend in music, aesthetics, literary fiction, film criticism, poetry, literary criticism and philosophy that generally describes creative works ...

movement as well as its use of social media platforms as its main source of publicity. He is described by ''

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'' magazine as "a writer who will, with equal enthusiasm, tweet a selfie of his butt and write the sincerest, saddest line of poetry you've ever read."

Poetry

The notice of Madsen's poetry began with him posting a photo someone had taken of his 2010 self-published book ''A Million Bears'' on

Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...

, which reached over 10,000 notes in the first 24-hour period. After reaching 300,000 notes ''

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'' featured the excerpted poem online, dubbing it the "Sad Cat Poem". In an interview with Adam Humphreys at ''Thought Catalog'', Madsen said that ''A Million Bears'' was out of print at the time of this spike in Tumblr publicity, but he later issued a second edition with a new cover. A second book of poetry from Spencer Madsen entitled ''You Can Make Anything Sad'' was published by

Publishing Genius Publishing Genius is an independent publisher located in Atlanta, Georgia, originally based in Baltimore, Maryland. The press, run by Adam Robinson, has published novels, short stories and poetry since 2006, including work by Stephanie Barber, Rac ...

on April 29, 2014. It received advanced praise from

Dennis Cooper Dennis Cooper (born January 10, 1953) is an American novelist, poet, critic, editor and performance artist. He is best known for the ''George Miles Cycle'', a series of five semi-autobiographical novels published between 1989 and 2000 and describ ...

. In a review at ''

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'', Lauren Oyler said "There's a disconnect between the narcissism Madsen and his alt-lit contemporaries have been accused of and the truly original insights you find yourself reading." At '' Vice'', Madsen interviewed New York Tyrant publisher Giancarlo DiTrapano about his experience reading Madsen's book. ''

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'' named ''You Can Make Anything Sad'' one of five "Indie Poetry Books That Even Non-Lit People Will Love."

Publishing

In early 2013, Madsen founded Sorry House, an independent,

publishing company Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

. Sorry House's debut publication was ''I will never be beautiful enough to make us beautiful together'' by

Mira Gonzalez Mira Gonzalez (born May 28, 1992) is an American poet.Anisse Gross, September 15, 2015, ''Publishers Weekly''Four Questions for...Poet Mira Gonzalez Retrieved September 23, 2019 Her first collection, ''i will never be beautiful enough to make us b ...

, released on January 31, 2013. In February 2013, the company published ''Joke Book'' by Victor Vazquez. Sorry House "transformed into a legitimate business" in early 2014 by becoming a

limited liability company A limited liability company (LLC for short) is the US-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of a ...

. In an interview with

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, Madsen cited Dalkey Archive,

Melville House Publishing Melville House Publishing is an American independent publisher of literary fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. The company was founded in 2001 and is run by the husband-and-wife team of Dennis Loy Johnson and Valerie Merians in Hoboken, New Jersey. T ...

Grove Press Grove Press is an United States of America, American Imprint (trade name), publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it in ...

Muumuu House Muumuu House is an independent, small press publishing company based in Manhattan, New York that was founded by writer Tao Lin in 2008. Muumuu House publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in print and online. Muumuu House has published prin ...

, and others as publishing influences. On March 12, 2014, Madsen published an article called "I Made the Mistake of Starting a Small Press and So Can You" that guides others to create their own small press.

Personal life

Spencer Madsen (along with his brother Tyler Madsen) were conceived through

in vitro fertilization In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation where an egg is combined with sperm in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating an individual's ovulatory process, removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) ...

(IVF).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Madsen, Spencer 21st-century American poets Living people Year of birth missing (living people)