Join us for Inverted Syntax's Launch Reading & Party!

Jesica Carson Davis & Nawal Nader-French

When the editors met at The Dikeou Pop-up gallery on Colfax we didn’t know what to anticipate. We've heard great things from writers like Steven Dunn, who recommended it as his favorite Denver art and literary space in our interview with him. Still, we wondered if it would be the right spot for the journal launch. Upon visiting, the Dikeou Pop-up gallery felt like the perfect spot to celebrate launching the first print issue of Inverted Syntax because like us, it’s scrappy but extensible.

“Located in the former Jerry’s Record Exchange storefront, Dikeou Pop-Up: Colfax is an extension of the Dikeou Collection and offers an alternative art experience in the heart of Denver. Work by artists Lizzi Bougatsos, Sarah Staton Supastore Supastars, Rainer Ganahl, Anicka Yi, and Devon Dikeou is on view at this location. The Dikeou Collection’s vinyl, laserdisc, and CEDs are archived here. Please see the Events section of the site to find information on upcoming programs at Dikeou Pop-Up: Colfax.”

It takes a few minutes to get settled into the space but once you do, it quickly becomes that perfectly sized event hall you wish you had had access to in the 90s. The space feels very liminal: a hybrid place for showcasing art, but also a celebration of words and full of music: party attendees are encouraged to pull one of the thousands of records that remain from the gallery’s former life as a record store and play them during the party!

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Choose a record to play

When we say we’ve got an exciting line-up of readers, we’re not kidding: poets, novelists, essayists, and uncategorizable writers (see the list below). These extraordinary humans are gathering to read to us, to wash us with words, to cleanse us, wake and restore us to the art form we are meant to be. You’ll be entertained, engaged, and you will leave feeling inspired.

Arrive at 6 for appetizers, drinks, and lively conversation; the readings begin at 6:45 with another break in between — we want everyone to meet and mingle, to build community. The event is free and open to all. 
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Come party with us!

Event Details

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Featuring readings by : 

ANDREA REXILIUS | ERIC BAUS | KATHY FISH | 
JEANINE PFEIFFER | JESICA CARSON DAVIS

​And the one and only Levi Andrew Noe will emcee! 

Come soak up Music, Drinks, Appetizers, and All the Words
Dikeou Pop-Up: Colfax 
6:00- 8:30pm

​It’s FREE, FREE, FREE and OPEN to the PUBLIC.

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About the Readers:

Jesica Carson Davis is a poet and technical writer living in Denver after several decades of travel. Her work has appeared in The Laurel Review, Zone 3, Columbia Poetry Review, Stoneboat, Storm Cellar, After Hours, and other places. Jesica worked as a typesetter for the University of Chicago Press, learned bookbinding at Columbia College, was the final Alice Maxine Bowie Fellow at Lighthouse Writers Workshop (2016-2017), and won Pilgrimage Press’s Tarantula Prize for Poetry (2019). Currently, she’s working on several poetry manuscripts and an ongoing project making poemboxes, which sculpturally interpret her words. Jesica initially started as a Reader for Inverted Syntax and is currently their Associate Editor.

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Jeanine Pfeiffer is an ethnoecologist with over 25 years’ experience in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, Dr. Pfeiffer is a senior lecturer at San José State University and a scientific advisor to government, tribal, non-profit and community-based organization. Chapters from her book-in-progress, The Language of Endangered Hearts, have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, anthologized, and published in the Bellevue Literary Review (“All Our Relations”), Hippocampus (“Until We Have Loved”), The Guardian, High Country News, Camas, The Citron Review, Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment, and elsewhere. 

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Andrea Rexilius is the author of The Way the Language Was (Letter Machine, forthcoming in Spring 2020), New Organism: Essais (Letter Machine, 2014), Half of What They Carried Flew Away (Letter Machine, 2012), and To Be Human Is To Be a Conversation (Rescue Press, 2011). Other creative and critical work appears in Academy of American Poets, Ampersand Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, the Elephants, Jubilat, Timber, and elsewhere. She is Core Faculty in Poetry, and Program Coordinator, for the Mile-High MFA in Creative Writing at Regis University. She also teaches in the Poetry Collective at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, Colorado.

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Eric Baus is the author of five books of poetry: The Tranquilized Tongue, (City Lights 2014), Scared Text, winner of the Colorado Prize for Poetry (Center for Literary Publishing, 2011), Tuned Droves (Octopus Books, 2009), and The To Sound, winner of the Verse Prize (Wave Books, 2004). How I Became a Hum (Octopus Books, 2018). He is also the author of several chapbooks, most recently The Rain Of The Ice (Above/Ground Press 2014). His poems have been translated into Spanish, Italian, and Finnish. Eric is a graduate of the PhD program in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Denver as well as the MFA program for poets and writers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He teaches literature and creative writing at Regis University’s Mile High MFA program in Denver.

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Kathy Fish’s short stories and flash fictions have appeared in Guernica, Indiana Review, Hobart, Denver Quarterly, Yemassee Review and elsewhere. She is the author of five collections of short fiction, most recently Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018 from Matter Press. Fish’s “Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild” which addresses the scourge of gun violence and mass shootings in America, will be anthologized in the newest edition of The Norton Reader. The piece was also reprinted in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018, edited by Sheila Heti and was chosen by Aimee Bender for Best Small Fictions 2018. Previously, Fish’s story, “Strong Tongue” was chosen by Amy Hempel for Best Small Fictions, 2017. Her work was also chosen by Stuart Dybek for Best Small Fictions 2016. Kathy is a faculty mentor in Fiction at the Mile-High MFA at Regis University in Denver. Additionally, she teaches two-week intensive Fast Flash© Workshops. 

The Inverted Syntax print issue is available on our or via Amazon. The issue features new work by Rae Armantrout, Khadijah Queen, Philip Metres, and many more. 
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