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
October 22, 2024
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
Purchase
Bench Editions
Writing
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
Cincinnati OH : Xavier University, McDonald Library, First Floor, Thursday October 24 @ 7 pm with Kylan Rice & Kristen Renzi
Iowa City IA : Normie Creep in the Sacred Grove, Dave’s Foxhead, Saturday November 2 with Kai Ihns, Aditi Machado & TBA
Queens NY : Topos Too, Saturday November 9 @ 7 pm with Kai Ihns, Jimin Seo, Ian Lockaby & Nora Treatbaby
Philadelphia PA : Spit Poetry, Upstairs Abyssinia, Sunday November 10 @ 7 pm with Matt Broaddus, Kai Ihns, Mia Kang & Ian Lockaby
Cleveland OH : NEOMFA Reading Series, Parker Hannafin Hall, Cleveland State University’s Parker Hannifin Hall Room 104, Friday November 15 @ 7 pm with Robyn Schiff, Q&A moderated by Caryl Pagel
Cleveland OH : Community Mausoleum Launch, Rhizome House, Friday November 22 @ 7 pm with Eric Wallgren, Caryl Pagel & Glenn Bach
Cleveland OH : Con Tú Variety Show, Dunlap’s Corner Bar, Sunday November 24 @ 8 pm with TBA comedian & musician
Denver CO : Counterpath Bookstore, Saturday December 14 with Daisy Atterbury, Julie Carr & Stella Corso
Recent
Cleveland OH : Starlight Elsewhere, Rhizome House, Thursday August 15 @ 7 pm
Buffalo NY : green_space (Chapin Parkway + Potomac Ave), Saturday August 17 @ 4 pm with Tia Brown & Thom Eichelberger-Young
Cleveland OH : Lit Cleveland Inkubator Conference, “Editing with an Eye Towards Publication,” Saturday September 21 @ 9 am with Abigail Anne Cloud & Walt Hunter
Chicago IL : Tangible Books, Thursday October 10 @ 7:15 pm with Kai Ihns, Leah Flax Barber, Lena Tsykynovska & Jesi Gaston
Milwaukee WI : Sugar Maple Tavern, Saturday October 12 @ 7 pm with Kai Ihns, Justin Cox & Anada Werner
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.