Poetry. Nuanced yet aggressive, EARTHQUAKE TO HARLEM is a tour de force of NYC poetry. From Harlem to Bensonhurst, from a budget hairdresser to the junkie under the corner scaffold, Sheeler (a lifelong New Yorker) allows the people and places she knows so well to engage with the larger universe. In this collection, God is both a prostitute and a suicide bomber; Star Trek a lifeline to sanity amidst the chaos of family dysfunction; police are variously family, foe and rescuers. Using language as musical as it is precise, Sheeler's poems animate an unexpected world--one you might not want to step into, but can't tear your eyes away from once you do.

Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA

Jackie Sheeler is a lifelong New Yorker and a lifelong juggler: poet, performance artist, songwriter, wordrocker, publisher, blogger, producer and webmaster. Earthquake Came to Harlem is Jackie's fourth book. Her first full-length collection, The Memory Factory, won the Magellan Prize and was published by Buttonwood Press in 2002. In addition to The New York Quarterly, her work has been widely anthologized and has appeared in Painted Bride Quarterly, Phoebe, Slant, and many other journals. Jackie has taught workshops at The Writer's Voice as well as at drug rehabs and prisons. She founded the poetz.com website in 1999 which, in addition to being one of the first online literary zines, remains THE poetry event hub for NYC. 1999 also marked the beginning of her weekly reading series, The Pony, which has featured many poets of national reputation and continues to this day. Jackie has no MFA nor any desire to obtain one; she's done fine with her GED so far and feels no need for an educational upgrade.

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