Ex-Spec Po Presents 2 Pieces by Benjamin Niespodziany

Description: My poetic practice is spastic and sporadic. I might write a dozen rough drafts in a few hours but won’t revisit them until months later. Often, I begin with automatic writing (5 to 10 minutes) and once I hit a concept/narrative (or simply a line that I enjoy), I’ll run with it. I love browsing visual art on Instagram for an image to kickstart the process. I’ve been doing this recently with minimal, abstract art as a kind of self-created Rorschach test. Or I might just toy around with how words sound clumped together. Example: The lousy cowboy was proud of his hawk’s claws. Okay, now I need to write a prose poem about this gentleman.

Bio: Benjamin Niespodziany is a librarian at the University of Chicago. He runs the multimedia art blog [neonpajamas] and has had work published in Paper Darts, Fairy Tale Review (forthcoming), Cheap Pop, Hobart (forthcoming), and various others. He hopes to one day write a novel about a limousine.