Alyssa Perry
Alyssa Perry is a writer, editor, and teacher from Iowa. She is the author of Oily Doily (Bench Editions, 2024). Her writing appears with Annulet, The Canary, Coma, Fence, Mercury Firs, River Styx, the Experimental Sound Studio, and other venues. Perry is poetry editor at the Cleveland Review of Books and an editor at the small press publisher Rescue Press. She lives in Ohio and teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
Oily Doily
Remarks
In Alyssa Perry's alchemical Oily Doily, lyric opens its throat at the vanishing point to pose as vision's dubious double—I see the eyes—and assonance offers up its juicy fruit, its noosey loop. From its "clarisonic" prelude to its Solarian terminus, Perry renders optics as orbit and icon, both the limit of human presence and the interface where immanence still might knock. Fizzy, fatal stuff. —Joyelle McSweeney, author of Death Styles
Razor-edged, stagger-rhymed, Oily Doily is a diamond saw. Its music is intricate and remorseless as its subject: empire, centuries of bourgeois kitsch, 80s flicks, tech strip-mining our curiosity, sympathy, and desire for solidarity. Miraculously, the work doesn’t fall for despair but offers clarity within clarity, glittering surfaces within aqueous depths. You’ll emerge from this debut wire-crossed and Perry-pilled. After a hundred pages, I’d gladly read two hundred more. —Joe Hall, author of Fugue & Strike
Order
Bench Editions
Woodland Pattern
Review & desk copies
Bencheditions [at] gmail [dot] com
Event ideas, class visits, collabs, etc
alyssarrrperry [at] gmail [dot] com
Writing
CSU Poetry Center : A swan, In order to be here & Filling station (video)
Apartment : from Pool (forthcoming)
Coma : Commercial break & from Pool
Mercury Firs : Clouds
New Orleans Poetry Festival : Filling station & A swan (video)
Experimental Sound Studio : from space project (video)
Fence : Xiu Xiu at Beachland Ballroom, Freerice.com & The ambassadors
Cleveland Review of Books : In order to be here
Wick Poetry Center : Remember-you-will-die-sun
River Styx : A swan
The Canary : What time is the next swan (print)
Yalobusha Review : Three-in-one sonic beauty device
Annulet : Filling station, From one position & Daisy
Denver Quarterly : Seeing Dario Argento’s Suspiria (print)
West Branch Wired : Byssus & Naval ship worm
Poetry Northwest : Work
Jubilat : Glamis girl in the bubble (print)
LVNG : Lithocardites & from Colony
Events
Upcoming
Cleveland OH : Broadsides & Ephemera, Loganberry Books, Thursday January 9 @ 7 pm
Cleveland OH : Rhizome House, Friday February 14 with Ceremonial Abyss & TBA
Kansas City MO : New Material Books, Saturday February 22 @ 7:30 pm with Justin Cox
Iowa City IA : Prairie Lights Books, Friday March 7 @ 7 pm with Daisy Atterbury
Cleveland OH : Visible Voice Books, Saturday March 15 @ 6 pm with Kai Ihns, Ossian Foley, Caryl Pagel & TBD
Madison WI : Giant Jones Brewery, Saturday March 8 with Kai Ihns, Daisy Atterbury & Jordan Dunn
Turners Falls MA : Unnameable Books, Friday May 30 @ 7 pm with Hilary Plum, Zach Savich & Justin Cox
Troy NY : Salon Salvage, Saturday May 31 with Zach Savich, Justin Cox & TBA
Kingston NY : Monday, June 2 with Hilary Plum, Zach Savich, Justin Cox & TBA
Editing
Poetry editor at Cleveland Review of Books (2024–), curating poetry and experimental prose for biannual print issues and monthly web series, as well as a bimonthly excerpt series of new and forthcoming small press publications. clereviewofbooks.com
Editor at Rescue Press (2022–), a small press publisher of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid-genre works. Previously intern and editorial assistant (2013–2021). Editor on Daisy Atterbury’s The Kármán Line (2024) and Adrienne Raphel’s Our Dark Academia (2022). rescuepress.co
Teaching
Assistant professor of writing at the Cleveland Institute of Art (2023–). Courses include Writing I, Writing II, Writing III, Creative Writing Senior Seminar, Art of the Personal Essay, Poetry Workshop, and Creative Writing Special Topics: Art Criticism. Coordinator of the Writing + Learning Center, a peer support resource.
Previous teaching includes appointments at Cleveland State University and University of Iowa, as well as work as a tutor, counselor, and teaching artist.