Join us for an exclusive Rumpus Poetry Book Club conversation with author Zefyr Lisowski, Noemi Press Poetry Editor, Diana Arterian, and Rumpus Enough Column Editor, Katie Kosma. They’ll discuss Zefyr Lisowski’s GIRL WORK and share how it fits into Noemi Press’s editorial vision.

About the June Poetry Book Club selection:

GIRL WORK, a book-length meditation on sexual violence and feminized labor, centers hybrid-form and prose poems exploring haunting, labor, sexual trauma, and the assertion of a gender- nonconforming self in our current political moment. Written in injunctions to the self, to past assailants, and to friends, GIRL WORK challenges canonical representations of pain as punitive, redemptive, or separable from the environmental conditions it springs from. Throughout GIRL WORK, a self is restored from the detritus of memory—flashes of sexual violence, pop cultural touchstones like the movie The Ring, the music of Ke$ha, the sudden death of a father, the paintings of Henry Darger, and more. Winner of the 2022 Book Award from Noemi Press.

Zefyr Lisowski is a writer from the Great Dismal Swamp, North Carolina. A 2023 NYFA/NYSCA Fellow in Nonfiction, and 2023 Queer|Art Fellow, Zefyr is the author of two poetry collections, Blood Box (Black Lawrence Press, 2019) and Girl Work (Noemi Press, 2024). Her essay collection about horror movies, exes, and love is forthcoming from Harper Perennial in Fall 2025.

Diana Arterian is the author of the poetry collection Playing Monster :: Seiche, which received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was the Editors’ Selection for the 1913 First Book Prize. She also penned the chapbooks With Lightness & Darkness and Other Brief Pieces (Essay Press), Death Centos (Ugly Duckling Presse), and co-edited Among Margins: Critical & Lyrical Writing on Aesthetics (Ricochet). Her creative work has been recognized with fellowships from the Banff Centre, Caldera, Millay Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and Yaddo. Diana’s poetry, nonfiction, criticism, conversations, and translations have been featured in BOMB, Brooklyn Rail, Los Angeles Review of Books, NPR, The New York Times Book Review, and The Poetry Foundation website, among others, and she curates and writes “The Annotated Nightstand” column at LitHub. Diana holds a PhD in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Southern California, and she splits her time between Cambridge and Los Angeles.

Noemi Press is a 501(c)(3) literary arts organization dedicated to publishing and promoting the work of emerging and established authors and artists.

Noemi Press strives to introduce voices that might otherwise be marginalized by mainstream presses to a broader audience. Noemi provides writers with support and guidance through extensive editorial collaboration. We have been a historically brown and queer press since our founding in 2002.

$20 non-member price. Poetry Book Club members use your promo code for FREE access. Members also receive a copy of the book.

Rumpus Poetry Book Club presents Zefyr Lisowski, author of Girl Work X Diana Arterian, editor at Noemi Press