Augustine in Carthage, and Other Poems is the daring new collection of poetry from Alessandro Porco

Equally crude and charming, locker-room macho and sensitive, these poems are always singularly marked by formal ingenuity and stylistic élan. A poetry that gleefully articulates the possibilities of a 21st century balls-deep masculinity, Porco’s new collections begins with its most important work, “Augustine in Carthage,” a trans-historical re-imagining of Book III of St. Augustine’s Confessions, which includes (among other things) philosophizing strippers, Tampico bombers, rabbit holes, coprology, and comic-book heroism. But for all its bombast “Augustine in Carthage” examines, quite seriously, ideas related to the experience of experience, the morality of poetry, and the hypocrisy of spiritual conversion. The book ends with an equally significant suite of depraved yet learned limericks: Porco’s perverse star shines in this unprecedented contribution to Canadian letters, exploring myriad filthy matters of heart. Augustine in Carthage, and Other Poems also includes translations of Italian poetry, re-mixes of classic English poems, performance pieces, tender love poems, and — if you would believe — even a short pornographic novel. Reminding readers that through Tradition the strange and new emerges, this is a deeply-felt and original collection, a work that understands (as its epigraph, in the words of Diderot, insists) “there is a bit of testicle at the bottom of our most sublime feelings and our purest tenderness.”

Alessandro Porco is a poet, critic, and scholar from Toronto, Canada. He earned his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo. His research focuses on twentieth-century poetry and poetics. Porco lives in Wilmington, where he is an Assistant Professor of English at UNCW.

Jerrold Levy was born and raised in New York City. He is the grandson of poet Mina Loy and son of art dealer Julien Levy. He attended Black Mountain College from 1947 to 1950, studying under Ilya Bolotowsky, Merce Cunningham, and Charles Olson. In 1959, Levy received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago.

Richard Negro grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, a suburb located twenty-five miles outside New York City. He attended Black Mountain College from 1947 to 1950 and was a star pupil of physicist Natasha Goldowski and poet M.C. Richards. He later studied physics at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Alessandro Porco is a poet, critic, and scholar from Toronto, Canada. He earned his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo. His research focuses on twentieth-century poetry and poetics. Porco lives in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he is an Assistant Professor of English at UNCW.

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