Play, with Foreign Object

by Jen Karetnick

Welcome to SWWIM Every Day’s annual Miami Book Fair preview. These video poems are each read by a woman-identifying writer who is attending Miami Book Fair 2024. Enjoy this taste of poetry, sponsored by Miami Book Fair and SWWIM. We look forward to seeing you at the Fair!

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Appearance at Miami Book Fair 2024: Jen Karetnick, Saturday 11/23/2024, 11 am, Room 8303

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Transcript of poem


The octopus found a coconut,
hollow and halved like a locket, 

dropped into its world. A chair
waiting for its occupant, the shell 

rocked on the ocean floor, inviting
as tea. The octopus lowered its mantle

into the crisp ochre fruit where the meat 
once was, and closed the other section 

over its head, sliding each of its arms
in from the cracks, leaving not a single 

sucker to be caught by edges. And then
it rolled and bounced, propelled by

the predictable tide. And the whole sea
shuddered with this shred of saturated joy.

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A 2024 National Poetry Series finalist, Jen Karetnick is the author of 11 poetry collections, including Inheritance with a High Error Rate, winner of the 2022 Cider Press Review Book Award (January 2024); The Burning Where Breath Used to Be (David Robert Books, 2020), winner of the 2021 CIPA EVVY Gold Medal and an Eric Hoffer Book Award Poetry Finalist; and The Crossing Over (2019), winner of the 2018 Split Rock Review Chapbook Competition. Her poems have received first place from the Sweet: Lit Poetry Contest, Tiferet Writing Contest for Poetry, Hart Crane Memorial Prize, and Anna Davidson Rosenberg Prize, among other honors, and received support from the Vermont Studio Center, Pine Meadows Ranch Center for Arts & Agriculture, Wassaic Project, Write On, Door County, Wildacres Retreat, Artists in Residence in the Everglades, Mother’s Milk, Centrum Residencies, and elsewhere. Jen's work has appeared in Cold Mountain Review's 50th-anniversary issue, Michigan Quarterly Review's 60th-anniversary issue, The Missouri Review's Poem of the Week feature, Notre Dame Review, Pleiades, Shenandoah, and other venues. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of California, Irvine, and an MFA in fiction from the University of Miami. See jkaretnick.com or follow on Instagram @JenKaretnick. 

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"Play, with Foreign Object" first appeared in The Fourth River and is collected in Inheritance with a High Error Rate, winner of the 2022 Cider Press review Book Award (January 2024). Permission granted by the poet.

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• 12/12 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Nicole Cooley + local writer Caroline Cabrera / The Gallery at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free

• One workshop remains in our Workshop Series--SWWIM Lessons: From Prompt to Placement: “Surfing Submittable with Jen Karetnick – Keeping your head above water in the poetry submissions process” on 12/10 (register here). Price: $80/workshop. Time: 7:00–9:00 PM (EST). Where: Zoom.

• Note: SWWIM Every Day is now accepting poetry translations for publication consideration. Please see swwim.org/submit for the full guidelines.

• Are you a SWWIMmer with literary news to share (publication/feature/award/book/book review)? We’d love to shout out your accomplishments in our Weekly Spotlight! Please email swwimmiami@gmail.com with a link to your news. (No DMs on any social media platforms, please.)

• Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, and Bluesky for more updates—and visit our website to see past, present, and future readings & events.

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