\Poet Marty McConnell announces the release of her first poetry book, wine for a shotgun, with EM Press Publishing. Marty McConnell will perform poems from the book, accompanied by the music of John Condron & the Benefit. Guest performers include: Bridget Lyons and Band, Mariah Neuroth, Emily Rose, and the 2012 Green Mill National Poetry Slam team: Shelley Randall, Eric Sirota, and Rik Vazquez. This debut collection, wine for a shotgun, uses the traditional tarot deck as well as the poet’s personal experiences as lenses through which to examine and explore issues related to gender and sexuality, family and spirituality. Delving into topics ranging from drag kinging to a parent’s infidelity, from polyamory to fetish, from playground bullying to questionable adult choices in love, wine for a shotgun digs into dark places and dares the reader to come along. An MFA graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, McConnell is part of the vanguard of poets fusing the delineations between literary and oral poetry. Her work blurs the lines between autobiography and personae to comment on what it means to live and love outside the lines in early twenty-first-century America. McConnell’s work has been published in numerous anthologies, including Bullets & Butterflies: Queer Spoken Word Poetry; City of the Big Shoulders: An Anthology of Chicago Poetry; Spoken Word Revolution Redux; as well as journals including Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and more. She appeared twice on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and competed in seven National Poetry Slams on teams representing New York City and Chicago. She is the 2012 National Underground Poetry Individual Competition (NUPIC) Champion and a two-time recipient of the Community Arts Assistance Program grant from the City of Chicago’s Office of Tourism and Culture. EM Press Publishing has published poets since 2000. Their catalog includes Marc Kelly Smith, Kevin Coval, Carolyn Aquila, Viggo Mortensen, and others.
