Poetry. "Gabriel Spera tiptoes a fine line, maintaining a balance between formalism and free verse, traditional tropes and verbal originality. When Spera casts his long, clause-riddled sentences into a formal structure, the result is often spectacular. The sentences tumble down through the stanzas like downhill skiers, swerving almost breathtakingly to clip the gate of each rhyme.... Spera lets himself be funny at times, sometimes crude, often violent. His verbal flourishes allow the poems to maintain a contemporary feel amidst conventional rhyme schemes. Spera's talent is strong enough to endure the force of his influences."—The Missouri Review

Author City: LOS ANGELES, CA USA

Gabriel Spera's first collection of poetry, The Standing Wave, was selected by Dave Smith for the National Poetry Series and subsequently received the Literary Book Award in Poetry from PEN USA-West. Additional honors include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He grew up in New Jersey and now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three daughters.

Reviews and Other Links
finalist for the 2013 Benjamin Franklin Award for Poetry
author site
Jennifer Fandel @ ForeWord Reviews