An Exercise In Necromancy
“Poems just don’t get newer, fresher, or more timely than Patrick Roche’s simple explosions. ‘An Exercise in Necromancy’ is the New Confessional — direct, unflinching, pure. Ah yes. ‘Watch me fight and watch me fight and watch me fight and watch me fight / And watch me kiss this city back so hard it never stops shining’.” — Bob Holman
This work was produced in collaboration with Bowery Arts + Science, in its first volume: An Exercise in Necromancy by Patrick Roche, winner of the first Bowery Poetry Chapbook Slam.
About the Contributor(s)
Patrick Roche is an award-winning poet and performer from New Jersey. Videos of Patrick's work have amassed over 7.5 million views on YouTube, making him one of the most popular spoken word poets. He is the author of An Exercise in Necromancy (Bowery Poetry/The Operating System, 2017). Patrick has competed or been featured at multiple national and international competitions and festivals, including placing 3rd in the world at the 2016 Individual World Poetry Slam, 2nd at the 2017 Capturing Fire national queer slam, 9th at the 2017 National Poetry Slam as part of the Bowery Slam Team, and 3rd at the 2014 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI, the national collegiate slam) as part of Princeton University's team. Patrick serves nationally as an ambassador for the JED Foundation, promoting mental and emotional health, suicide prevention, and substance abuse awareness. He has shared stages with Darryl 'DMC' McDaniels of RUN DMC, Pitch Perfect star Brittany Snow, Everybody Hates Chris and The Walking Dead star Tyler James Williams, and Olympic Gold Medalist Chamique Holdsclaw, among others.
Patrick's work has appeared in or been published by Button Poetry, UpWorthy, Buzzfeed, The Huffington Post, MSN, Beech Street Review, Gal Pals Present, Freezeray Press, Voicemail Poems, and more. His work explores mental health, grief, sexuality, body image, disordered eating, family, memory, love, joy, pop culture, and everything in between. Patrick is a 2014 graduate of Princeton University, where he studied Classics (specifically Latin and Greek poetry) and Education.
Patte Loper is a painter who experiments with sculpture and video. She was born in Colorado and grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, a subtropical college town where she first developed an appreciation for the ways nature and culture can overlap. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Boston, MA where she is on the faculty of the School of the Museum of fine Arts at Tufts University.
She has shown her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally, including the Drawing Center in New York, The Bronx Museum, The Licini Museum in Ascoli Piceno, Italy, LMCC’s Art Center on Governor’s Island New York, the Juliette Art Museum at the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences, the Palaentological Museum in Cortina, Italy, the Tacoma Art Museum, Suyama Space in Seattle, WA, and the Zuckerman Museum in Atlanta, GA. Her work has been reviewed in the Italian edition of Flash Art, Artnet, Time Out, Chicago, and the Boston Globe, and is in the collections of the Rene di Rosa Foundation, the Microsoft Corporation, and the Hirshhorn Museum.
The painting that graces the cover, “Until I Hear You Sigh Here,” (2009), is Acrylic and Oil on Paper, 20” x 25,” and is used with permission. Find more of Patte and her work at https://patteloper.com.
