Divya Victor

Divya Victor’s writing, editing, and research focuses on 20th, 21stC, and emergent poetry and poetics, with an emphasis on innovative and experimental forms and poets who undertake representations of trauma, both systemic and intersubjective.

She is the author of Kith (Fence Books/ Book Thug, 2017). The cross-genre book explores national, racial, and linguistic difference in the United States, Singapore, India, and other sites of the Indian diaspora. Written as a hybrid book which operates across genres—poetry, lyric essay, and prose memoir—Kithengages themes of migration, communal mythology, collective notions of “destiny,” and native identity to examine the resistant potential of feminized bodies facing assimilative pressures.

She is Associate Professor of Poetry and Writing and teaches across literary genres and aesthetic ranges at the Introductory level and teaches Advanced manuscript workshops with an emphasis on experimental, performance-oriented, and hybrid forms of contemporary poetry.

Her poetry and essays have been translated into French, Spanish, German, and Czech. She has been a Mark Diamond Research Fellow at the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum, a Riverrun Fellow at the Archive for New Poetry at University of California San Diego, and a Writer in Residence at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibit (L.A.C.E.). Her work has been performed and installed at/for Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) Los Angeles, The National Gallery of Singapore, the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibit (L.A.C.E.) and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). She is currently at work on an artist’s book project commissioned by the Press at Colorado College.

She is also the author of several other books of poetry, chapbooks, and articles. She has been a featured critic for The Poetry Foundation. She is the continuing Guest Editor for Jacket2 (University of Pennsylvania), where she has curated features on Conceptual Writing (Plural and Global)and Extremity(As Form and Theme). She has been a long-standing commentator and critic for Jacket2, producing extended series of interviews with significant feminist poets (Discourses on Vocality) and poets writing in the expanded and transnational Anglophone context (Discourses on Locality). She is the developmental editor of several books of poetry from contemporary innovative presses, including BookThug (Toronto), Invisible Publishing (Toronto), and Ethos Books (Singapore).She is on the Advisory board of Palgrave Studies in Contemporary Women’s Writing and on the Editorial Board of Les Figues Press.

Selected Publications and Presences:

Books

Curb, The Press at Colorado College. Artist book commission. Forthcoming, Colorado, 2019.

Kith, Fence Books (U.S.A), BookThug (Canada). 2017

Unsub, Insert Blanc. Los Angeles. 2015

Natural Subjects, Trembling Pillow (Winner of the Bob Kaufman Award). New Orleans. 2014

Things To Do With Your Mouth, Les Figues. Los Angeles. 2014

Chapbooks and Non-Codex Publications

Semblance.With an Introduction by Douglas Kearney. Sputnik and Fizzle Book Series (Featuring Fred Moten, Isla (Mason) Leaver-Yap). New York/Butte. 2016

Reconfiliating: Conversations with Conceptual-Affiliated Writers. With an Afterword by Joseph Mosconi. Essay Press. Wyoming/Oakland. 2015

Swift Taxidermies 1919-1922, Gauss PDF. Philadelphia/San Francisco. 2014

Say Hello To Your Last Chapbook, with Mathias Svalina, New Lights Press. Colorado Springs. 2014

Partial Derivative of the Unnamable,Troll Thread. Buffalo/New York City. 2012

Goodbye, John! On John Baldessari, Gauss PDF. Philadelphia/San Francisco. 2012

Punch, Gauss PDF. Philadelphia/San Francisco. 2011

Partial Dictionary of the Unnamable, Troll Thread. Buffalo/New York City. 2011

Partial Directory of the Unnamable, Troll Thread. Buffalo/New York City. 2011

Hellocasts by Charles Reznikoff by Divya Victor by Vanessa Place, Ood Press. Los Angeles. 2010

Sutures, Little Red Leaves. New Braunfels/ Colorado Springs/ Houston. 2009

Refereed Critical Articles

“An(other)’s Way of Knowing: Memory, Testimony, and Subjectivity in Bapsi Sidhwa’s ‘Defend Yourself Against Me’.” Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies. Vol. 16 Special Issue: Postcolonial Pakistani Writing In English (2011): 82-100

Anthologized Work

“Skirt” and “Unskirt,” Counter-Desecration: A Glossary for Writing Within the Anthropocene, Wesleyan University Press. 2018

“Color: A Sequence of Unbearable Happenings,” BAX: Best American Experimental Writing,Wesleyan University Press. 2016

“Three Deconstructions: On Wu Pen Seng’s Photography,” Eye/Feel/Write: Experiments in Ekphrasis. Commissioned by the National Gallery (Singapore), Squircle Line Press. 2015

“Answer,” The Animated Reader. Commissioned by The New Museum for The New Museum Triennial. 2015

“Mouth to Mouth With Your Mouth,” Trench Art: Hurry Up Please Its Time, Les Figues Press. 2015

Installation, Performance, Visual and Alt-media

“Paper Boats,” sound installation, for THIS KNOWN WORLD: Spontaneous Particulars of the Poetic Research Bureau, for Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) Los Angeles, Los Angeles. January 2017

“Paper Boats,” collaborative public performance. With Joseph Mosconi and Sophia Le Fraga. The Poetic Research Bureau. Los Angeles. April 2016

“Paper People,” Collaborative public installation. With Fia Backström. Commissioned by The Artist’s Institute/Hunter College, New York City. November/December 2015

A Mouth To Mouth With Your Mouth, Bent In Exhibit, Prime Time Gallery, New York City. 201

3“Subjects of Poetry,” The Claudius App. Issue 4. With Jon Rutzmoser. 2013

Race Card, Niagara Book Arts Center, St. Catharine’s, Ontario. 2012

Hellocasts, Not Content Exhibit, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibit, Los Angeles. 2011

“As if my Life: Responding to Lyn Hejinian’s My Life,” AS IF Auction, Les Figues, Human Resources, Los Angeles, 2011

“Writing the Hellocast” THE FIELD Auction, Les Figues, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibit, Los Angeles. 2010.