A Night of Sonnets: Drew Pisarra’s “Infinity Standing Up”

Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop will host a reading of Drew Pisarra’s new poetry collection “Infinity Standing Up” at their Dumbo location: 141 Front St. This is a free event.

Drew Pisarra’s new poetry book Infinity Standing Up has been hailed as “a stunning collection of unique and eclectic observations of modern love” (Anna Girvan, Creative Fellow with the Royal Shakespeare Company). For one night only, you can hear the tumultuous sonnet sequence in its entirety as Pisarra comes together with a handful of performers to read the work aloud. Think a Bloomsday marathon but under an hour and now with rhymes.

Advance Praise for Infinity Standing Up

“A stunning collection of unique and eclectic observations of modern love which I’m sure Shakespeare himself would be pleased to see is ‘holding a mirror up to life.’ If Wes Anderson and Miranda July had a Queer love-child, they’d write like this.” – Anna Girvan, Creative Fellow with the Royal Shakespeare Company

“Rhyming and skipping his way through jaggedly sexualized and playful, formal sonnets with serendipity and style (“Devour me! Think me not some crazy nut.”), Drew Pisarra has written a rousing and unusual collection of poems that respond with see-saw emotion to a lover who comes and goes, with difficulty and love. Puns abound; titles tease. These sonnets will knock you out, and you’ll return to them again.” – Diane Mehta, How to Write Poetry (2005)

“These poems navigate the rapids of desire in a form that was made for twists and turns of feeling, from the derangement of lust to rueful self-reflection. Drew Pisarra honors the Shakespearean sonnet’s tradition of wit and economy, while simultaneously delivering the pleasurable shock of 21st-century idiom.” – Joan Larkin, Cold River (Lambda Literary Award)


About Drew Pisarra: Pisarra once toured his monologues nationwide and even had a ventriloquist act but has since retired from the world of dummies. His short story collection Publick Spanking was published by Future Tense eons ago. As part of Saint Flashlight with Molly Gross, he works to get poetry into public spaces.

About Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop: Berl’s is envisioned as a new kind of bookstore, not a dense hive of shelves but a friendly, curated selection of small press books, a personal celebration of great writing with a special platform for handmade and limited edition works handmade by writers and publishers that often slip under the radar. We hope to be, in a sense, a museum for the poetry we love, human-scaled, offering visitors entry into a wonderful secret and a welcoming family.

About the Performers

Drew Pisarra is a poet, playwright, and short story writer. His art activation project (with Molly Gross), Saint Flashlight, finds inventive ways to get poetry into public places. His previous book Publick Spanking, a collection of short fiction, was published by Future Tense some time ago. Infinity Standing Up is his first book of poetry.

Alec Glass started acting with a small Shakespeare program on an island when he was 13, and has since been wrapped up in all manner of theater ever since. He graduated from Bard College in 2018 with a BA in Theater and Performance.

Giordano Cruz performed in King Lear with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Brooklyn Academy of Music but you may have seen even more of him in Torn Out Theatre’s outdoor, naked productions of Hamlet and Aphra Behn’s The Rover staged in Prospect Park.

Loui Alexander Terrier is a Jamaican-born American artist, indie filmmaker, and musician. His art straddles abstraction, surrealism, and magic realism — highlighting the quirky corners of his mind and the diversity of NYC.

Nicki Lilavois is a longtime collaborator of Drew Pisarra having acted in his short film “18 Kisses of Significance,” written/installed haiku for Movie Marquee Poems with Saint Flashlight, consulted for the Lost Poem project, and staged-managed his experimental theater piece Colonus.

Christine Fall loves bringing stories to life onstage and onscreen. Before turning her attention to documentary filmmaking, she studied acting with Uta Hagen, performed at many NYC theaters, and regionally at the McCarter and the Dorset Theater Festival. In her solo show, Don’t Break Your Egg, she shared her own hilarious and heartbreaking tales, and now she’s excited to share some of Drew’s.

Additionally: In conjunction with the reading, Berl’s will be displaying all 12 flyers that were part of Saint Flashlight’s LOST POEM project at O, Miami Poetry Festival and Free Verse: Charleston Poetry Festival in 2019. The installation will be up for the entire month of May.

For more information, contact Berl’s at [email protected] or 347-687-2375 or email the author directly at [email protected].











When: Thu., May. 23, 2019 at 7:00 pm

Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop will host a reading of Drew Pisarra’s new poetry collection “Infinity Standing Up” at their Dumbo location: 141 Front St. This is a free event.

Drew Pisarra’s new poetry book Infinity Standing Up has been hailed as “a stunning collection of unique and eclectic observations of modern love” (Anna Girvan, Creative Fellow with the Royal Shakespeare Company). For one night only, you can hear the tumultuous sonnet sequence in its entirety as Pisarra comes together with a handful of performers to read the work aloud. Think a Bloomsday marathon but under an hour and now with rhymes.

Advance Praise for Infinity Standing Up

“A stunning collection of unique and eclectic observations of modern love which I’m sure Shakespeare himself would be pleased to see is ‘holding a mirror up to life.’ If Wes Anderson and Miranda July had a Queer love-child, they’d write like this.” – Anna Girvan, Creative Fellow with the Royal Shakespeare Company

“Rhyming and skipping his way through jaggedly sexualized and playful, formal sonnets with serendipity and style (“Devour me! Think me not some crazy nut.”), Drew Pisarra has written a rousing and unusual collection of poems that respond with see-saw emotion to a lover who comes and goes, with difficulty and love. Puns abound; titles tease. These sonnets will knock you out, and you’ll return to them again.” – Diane Mehta, How to Write Poetry (2005)

“These poems navigate the rapids of desire in a form that was made for twists and turns of feeling, from the derangement of lust to rueful self-reflection. Drew Pisarra honors the Shakespearean sonnet’s tradition of wit and economy, while simultaneously delivering the pleasurable shock of 21st-century idiom.” – Joan Larkin, Cold River (Lambda Literary Award)


About Drew Pisarra: Pisarra once toured his monologues nationwide and even had a ventriloquist act but has since retired from the world of dummies. His short story collection Publick Spanking was published by Future Tense eons ago. As part of Saint Flashlight with Molly Gross, he works to get poetry into public spaces.

About Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop: Berl’s is envisioned as a new kind of bookstore, not a dense hive of shelves but a friendly, curated selection of small press books, a personal celebration of great writing with a special platform for handmade and limited edition works handmade by writers and publishers that often slip under the radar. We hope to be, in a sense, a museum for the poetry we love, human-scaled, offering visitors entry into a wonderful secret and a welcoming family.

About the Performers

Drew Pisarra is a poet, playwright, and short story writer. His art activation project (with Molly Gross), Saint Flashlight, finds inventive ways to get poetry into public places. His previous book Publick Spanking, a collection of short fiction, was published by Future Tense some time ago. Infinity Standing Up is his first book of poetry.

Alec Glass started acting with a small Shakespeare program on an island when he was 13, and has since been wrapped up in all manner of theater ever since. He graduated from Bard College in 2018 with a BA in Theater and Performance.

Giordano Cruz performed in King Lear with the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Brooklyn Academy of Music but you may have seen even more of him in Torn Out Theatre’s outdoor, naked productions of Hamlet and Aphra Behn’s The Rover staged in Prospect Park.

Loui Alexander Terrier is a Jamaican-born American artist, indie filmmaker, and musician. His art straddles abstraction, surrealism, and magic realism — highlighting the quirky corners of his mind and the diversity of NYC.

Nicki Lilavois is a longtime collaborator of Drew Pisarra having acted in his short film “18 Kisses of Significance,” written/installed haiku for Movie Marquee Poems with Saint Flashlight, consulted for the Lost Poem project, and staged-managed his experimental theater piece Colonus.

Christine Fall loves bringing stories to life onstage and onscreen. Before turning her attention to documentary filmmaking, she studied acting with Uta Hagen, performed at many NYC theaters, and regionally at the McCarter and the Dorset Theater Festival. In her solo show, Don’t Break Your Egg, she shared her own hilarious and heartbreaking tales, and now she’s excited to share some of Drew’s.

Additionally: In conjunction with the reading, Berl’s will be displaying all 12 flyers that were part of Saint Flashlight’s LOST POEM project at O, Miami Poetry Festival and Free Verse: Charleston Poetry Festival in 2019. The installation will be up for the entire month of May.

For more information, contact Berl’s at [email protected] or 347-687-2375 or email the author directly at [email protected].

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