Eleni Sikelianos


Eleni Sikelianos is an American experimental poet with a particular interest in scientific idiom. She is Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University.

Early life

Sikelianos is the great-granddaughter of the Greek poet Angelos Sikelianos, a former candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and Eva Palmer-Sikelianos. She was raised in California. A high school dropout, she grew up on food stamps in California with a single mom, and graduated from the Naropa Institute with an MFA in Writing & Poetics.

Career

Sikelianos works as Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University. She was poet-in-residence at two homeless shelters in San Francisco in the early-to-mid 1990s and then taught at Teachers & Writers Collaborative in New York City and literature and Bard College's Clemente Program. She co-ran the Wednesday Night Readings at the St. Mark's Poetry Project in St. Mark's Church. She has also taught at Naropa, and the University of Denver, where Eryn Green, Carolina Ebeid and Jennifer Elise Foerster have been her students, among many others.
Her work has appeared in Grand Street, Rattapallax, Sulfur, Chicago Review, and Fence. In an interview she gave with the California Journal of Poetics, Sikelianos discusses how zoology, cell biology, and marine biology became important to her early poetic sensibility. She cites Lynn Margulis’ work in evolutionary symbiosis and the work of D’Arcy Wentworth Thomas as influential."

Personal life

She currently lives in Rhode Island with her husband, Laird Hunt, and their child.

Awards

Works

Poetry

'
  • ' '
  • ' '
  • ' To Speak While Dreaming 1993

Hybrid Memoir

'
  • '.

Chapbooks

Comerás un croissant para ser feliz, Pancaliente editoras, Ciudad de México, 2017. For a reading with Rodrigo Flores and Xitlátil Rodriguez on April 3, 2017. Eleni Sikeliano’s poems translated by Javier Taboada.How to Assemble the Animal Globe, with “blind embossings” by Christine Lee, ed. Marthe Reed, Nous-zōt Press, 2016.Oracle or, Utopia: ed. Jen Tynes, Horse Less Press, 2014The Abstracted Heart of Hours & Days, Bonfire Press, Center for Literary Publishing, Ft. Collins, eds. Sasha Steensen & Gordon Hadfield, Colorado, 2008.
  • Excerpts from The Book of Jon, Belladonna Books/Boog Literature, eds. Rachel Levitsky & David Kirschenbaum, New York, NY, 2000. For a reading at Bluestockings Women’s Bookstore, Oct. 6, 2000, with Fanny Howe.Blue Guide, Poetry New York, ed. Tod Thilleman, 1999.The Lover's Numbers, Seeing Eye Books, Los Angeles, ed. Guy Bennett, 1998Au Lit Holy, or Transgressions of the Maghreb, Smokeproof Press, ed. Brad O'Sullivan, collaborative work, Erie, CO, 1998.The Book of Tendons, ed. Laird Hunt, Heart Hammer Books, Paris, 1996. For a reading at the Poetry Project with Susan Howe.Poetics of the Exclamation Point, Printed for the July 12, 1995 Kerouac School reading at the Fox Theater in Boulder, Colorado. Featured readers Robin Blaser, Anne Waldman, Lee Ann Brown, Allen Ginsberg, Jim Carroll, and Eleni Sikelianos.

Collaborative Artist Book

Father had leaves, collaboration with Anne Slacik in the Livres peints series, edition of 16 signed copies, made on 16 February 1996.

Criticism

*

Anthologies

The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Graphic Literature: Artists and Writers on Creating Graphic Narratives, Poetry Comics, and Literary Collage, eds. Kelcey Parker Ervick and Tom Hart More Revolutionary Letters: A Tribute in Memory of Diane di Prima The Body in Language Counter-Desecration: A Glossary for Writing within the Anthropocene, eds. Reed and Russo Futures: Poetry of the Greek Crisis Out of Everywhere: Linguistically Innovative Women Poets in North American and the UK Futures: Poetry of the Greek Crisis Funk & Wag from A to Z Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, ed. Paul Hoover The &NOW Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, &NOW Books Bioblitz: Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park, ed. Charles Malone The Americas Anthology of New Writings: From Patagonia to Nunavut The Aracdia Project, eds. Corey and Waldrep, Paris: an Anthology, eds. Barns and Fernandez, What the World Hears: California Poets in the Schools Statewide Anthology, 45th Anniversary Edition American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, eds. Cole Swensen and David St. John Satellite Convulsions: Poems from Tin House, eds. Brenda Shaughnessy and CJ Evans A Best of Fence: The First Nine Years, ed. Caroline Crumpacker, Efforts & Affections: America’s New Women Poets and the Generation that Inspires Them, The Reality Street Book of Sonnets, ed. Jeff Hilson, PP/FF: An Anthology, Peter H. Conners, ed. Civil Disobediences: Poetics and Politics in Action, Anne Waldman & Lisa Birman, eds. Kindled Terraces: American Poets in Greece, Don Schofield, ed.