My work explores the interstices between visual and textual language with a critical eye on their roles in our culture. It is deeply informed by cinematic, poetic, and documentary practice and engages subject matter through disruption of content and form, fragmentation of narrative, and radical juxtaposition of visual and textual elements. Through appropriation of archival source material like film footage, audio recordings, and written texts I investigate language as a cultural artifact, question the intent in its formulation and use, and through techniques of disruption and juxtaposition seek to subvert the source material’s intended interpretation.

To schedule Francesco Levato for readings, lectures, or other literary events please email at info@francescolevato.com.

If you are an editor, or reviewer and need reading copy or publicity materials, please email at info@francescolevato.com.

Francesco welcomes feedback from his readers. Feel free to email him comments or questions at info@francescolevato.com

Poet, translator, and filmmaker Francesco Levato is the author of four books of poetry: Endless, Beautiful, Exact; Elegy for Dead Languages; War Rug, a book length documentary poem; and Marginal State. He has translated into English the books of Italian poets Tiziano Fratus, Creaturing, and Fabiano Alborghetti, The Opposite Shore. His work has been published internationally in journals and anthologies, both in print and online. He has collaborated and performed with various composers, including Philip Glass, and his cinépoetry has been exhibited in galleries and featured at film festivals in Berlin, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere. He is the founder and director of the Chicago School of Poetics and holds an MFA in poetry from New England College.

Selected Publications

Books:

• Elegy for Dead Languages (Marick Press, 2010)
• Creaturing, by Tiziano Fratus, translated from the Italian by Francesco Levato (Marick Press, 2010)
• War Rug (Plastique Press, 2009)
• Marginal State (Fractal Edge Press, 2006)

Anthologies:

• A Writers’ Congress: Chicago Poets on the Inauguration of Barack Obama (DePaul University Press, 2009), “Gathering Breath”
• While the He/art Pants: Poetic Responses to the 2008 American Elections (reprinted in Fieralingue, 2009), “Gathering Breath”
• Witness: Anthology of Poetry (Serengeti Press, 2004), “Blood and Oil,” “Kimono Tattoo”

Journals:

• “INT. MEDICINE CABINET” Another Chicago Magazine (forthcoming, 2011)
• “The Molossus: MOUTH II | old documents: IMAGE II” by Tiziano Fratus, translated from the Italian by Francesco Levato, Poetry International (forthcoming, 2011)
• “The Opposite Shore” (excerpt) by Fabiano Alborghetti, translated from the Italian by Francesco Levato, Ezra (forthcoming, 2011)
• “Variations on Want: Sequence I” VLAK Magazine (Prague, forthcoming, 2011)
• “Do (not) touch” poetry film, Slope (forthcoming, 2010)
• “Endless, Beautiful, Exact” Cordite Poetry Review (Australia, 2010)
• “The Molossus: MOUTH II | old documents: IMAGE III” by Tiziano Fratus, translated from the Italian by Francesco Levato, LA Review (2010)
• “Variations on Want: Sequence II: The Film” poetry film, Moria (2010)
• “War Rug: The Film” poetry film, Tygerburning (2010)
• “Blood, Ink, Patron of Thieves,” and “Flight Characteristics of Human Blood and Stain Patterns” Scapegoat Review (2009)
• “Elegy for Dead Languages” Seven Corners (2009)
• “Knotting of Rope: The Film” poetry film, Drunken Boat (2009)
• “War Rug” (excerpt, pages 1-12 reprinted, pages 13-15 and 30-37) Big Bridge (2009)
• “War Rug” (excerpt printed as a broadside) Broadsided Press (2009)
• “War Rug” (excerpt, pages 44-45) Fact-Simile (2009)
• “War Rug” (excerpt, pages 1-3) translated into Italian, LUDWIG (Italy, 2009)
• “Bootstrap, Pyre, Shattered Teeth” Moria (2008)
• “The Blue Lit Stage” The Progressive (2008)
• “War Rug” (excerpt, pages 1-12) Xcp: Cross Cultural Poetics (2008)
• “An Act of Faith,” “The Knotting of Rope,” and “The Mechanics of Plastic” Out of Line (2007)
• “Fragments of a Name,” “In the Orchard, Underfoot,” and “Photography 101” Arabesques Review (2007)
• “Shadows of East End” Citizen 32 (London, 2007)
• “The Right to Remain” Versal (Amsterdam, 2007)
• “Made in the USA” reprinted in Sharkforum (2006)
• “The Impermanence of Concrete” Spire Magazine (2006)
• “Wake the Fuck Up” Cesium Magazine (2006)
• “Wake the Fuck Up” audio, Spoken War (2006)
• “Kimono Tattoo” Snow Monkey (2005)
• “Morning Light,” After Hours (2005)
• “Fourth and Goal” Newtopia Magazine (2004)
• “Fourth and Goal” reprinted in Voices in Wartime (2004)
• “Halogen Drift,” “The Places In-between,” and “Urban Renewal” reprinted in XCP: Streetnotes (2004)
• “Blood and Oil” Poets Against War (2003)
• “Last Call “ and “Made in the USA” Niederngasse (2002)
• “The Places In-between,” “Truck Stop a.m.,” and “Urban Renewal” Outsider Ink (2002)
• “Rites of Passing” Poetic-Review (London, 2002)

Poetry Film Exhibitions:

• Zebra Poetry Film Festival (Berlin, Germany, 2010)
• New Filmmakers, Anthology Film Archives (New York, NY, 2010)
• Feldpost – Wenn der Krieg nach Hause kommt, Literaturwerkstatt (Berlin, Germany, 2010)
• Split This Rock Poetry Festival (Washington, DC, 2010)
• Potenza International Film Festival (Potenza, Italy, 2009)
• Binary: a pairing of opposite states, St. Paul’s Cultural Center (Chicago, 2009)
• The Black Market Gallery (Chicago, 2009)
• Sepia, Susan Aurinko, Guest Curator, Mars Gallery (Chicago, 2009)
• The Kinsey Institute’s 2009 Juried Art Show, Indiana University School of Fine Arts Gallery (Bloomington, IN, 2009)
• UniVerse: Festival of International Poetry, Chicago Center for the Performing Arts (Chicago, 2009)
• Zebra Poetry Film Festival (Berlin, Germany, 2008)
• Visible Verse, Pacific Cinémathèque (Vancouver, Canada, 2008)
• Split This Rock Poetry Festival (Washington, DC, 2008)
• Experiencing the War in Iraq, reconnectUS (Fall River, MA, 2008)
• artXposium (West Chicago, IL, 2007)
• Mission Accomplished: Contemporary Political Art, Digital Artist’s Space (Troy, NY, 2007)
• Painting with Fire, Chen Gallery (New Britain, CT, 2007)
• From Sham to Shame, Woman Made Gallery (Chicago, 2007)
• Peace & Justice Exhibit, Acme Artworks (Chicago, 2006)

Lectures/Speaking Engagements

• Illinois State University, 2010, Cinépoetry
• Split This Rock Poetry Festival, 2010, Documentary Poetics
• War, Literature, and Art, 2010, United States Air Force Academy, Cinépoetry
• &Now Festival of Innovative Writing, 2009, SUNY, New Media Poetics
• ROCKPILE, with David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg, 2009, poetry/improvisational jazz fusion
• School of the Art Institute of Chicago, spring 2009, guest lecturer, New Media Poetics
• Series A: Conference on Poetics, 2009, Hyde Park Art Center, New Media Poetics
• Series A, 2009, Hyde Park Art Center, poetry reading
• Upstairs at Erika’s, 2009, poetry film screening
• Myopic Reading Series, 2008, poetry reading
• Harold Washington College, 2006, Guest Speaker, poetry publication
• Lewis University, 2006, Guest Speaker
• Midwest Literary Festival, 2006, Guest Lecturer, Poetry as Social Engagement
• World Can’t Wait at Columbia College, 2006, Guest Speaker, The Artist’s Role in Resistance

Editorships

• The Atlanta Review, 2010, Guest Editor, Italian poetry in translation
• Poetry International, 2010–present, Cinépoetry Editor
• Drunken Boat, 2009, Guest Editor, Cinépoetry
• Plastique Press, 2009, Founding Editor
• Hands on Stanzas Anthology of Student Poetry, The Poetry Center of Chicago, 2007–2010, Editor/publisher
• Locuspoint Magazine, 2006, Chicago Poetry Editor
• Ink & Ashes: a journal of the senses, 2005, Founding Editor
• UniVerse of Poetry, 2005–present, Editor, Artistic Director
• Newtopia Magazine, 2004, Poetry Editor

Awards

• Zebra Poetry Film Festival, War Rug, official selection, 2010, Berlin
• NewFilmmakers at Anthology Film Archives, official selection, 2010, NYC
• Potenza International Film Festival, War Rug, official selection, 2009
• Mississippi Valley Poetry Chapbook Contest, finalist, 2009
• Chicago’s Lit 50, Newcity Magazine, 2009
• Pushcart Prize nomination, War Rug (Xcp: Cross Cultural Poetics, 2008)
• Private foundation award for filmmakers (2008, for Zebra Poetry Film Festival)
• Pushcart Prize nomination, An Act of Faith, Marginal State (Fractal Edge Press, 2006)
• Vermont Studio Center, two consecutive poetry fellowships