Paolo Bicchieri : part one

Paolo Bicchieri is white latinx writer living on the coast. His writing has appeared in Eater SF, SF Weekly, Standart Magazine, Ghost City Press, Quiet Lightning, Bay Area Generations, and more. He is the co-founder of the reading series Something Ordinary. He is the recipient of the 2019 Bindle Award from Nomadic Press and the Teach! Write! Play! Writing Fellowship from the Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. He has spent time organizing with campesinos for Communidad de Communidad and recruiting volunteers for 826 Valencia. Paolo is the author of three books of speculative fiction. Familial Animals (Animal Heart Press, 2021) is his first book of poetry.

Photo credit: Lucie Pereira 

Has your consideration of poetry changed since you began?

Oh yeah, a ton. I wrote rhyming poems for middle school crushes when I was 12-years-old. Anyone writing with the same intentions or understanding of what poetry can be or the role it can hold in society might not be approaching their work with much intention. It is, after all, work – that’s how I see it now. Work to excavate yourself and your beliefs, work to liberate yourself and others, and work to connect politics to people. Shout out to my partner for showing me Safia Elhillo, Danez Smith, and Chinaka Hodge, all of whom do this in clever, beautiful ways.