retribution forthcoming
Winner of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, finalist for an Ohio Book Award in poetry, longlisted for the Julie Suk Award.
In the lineage of New York School poets like Alice Notley and Bernadette Mayer, retribution forthcoming does its exploratory work through narrative and lyric modes, by simile and catalogue. By turns oblique and direct, Katie Berta’s poems look vulnerably and honestly at sexual coercion and the psychological fallout of assault. These poems move through academic, public, and domestic spaces—and through the domain of memory—investigating the ways consumerist society reinforces and reifies gender conformity and performativity. The world of these poems and their trauma narrative is woven through and deepened by the heartful speaker’s sense of humor and eagerness to love and trust.
recent news
01 — New poem in The Rumpus
Thank you to the editors of The Rumpus for including my poem, “Imprecision,” among so many writers I admire.
02 — Read my review of Prageeta Sharma’s new Onement Won in the L.A. Review of Books
Prageeta Sharma’s newest poetry collection is stunning in its complexity. Thanks to the team at L.A. Review of Books for publishing my take.
03 — Read Brittany Micka-Foos’s review of retribution forthcoming in Heavy Feather Review
Thank you to Brittany Micka-Foos and Heavy Feather Review for featuring retribution forthcoming. Micka-Foos says, of the book, “Berta speaks through these poems with a ticking-timebomb urgency. It draws you in and forces you to reckon with what’s impending.”
04 — Poems included in “Rorqual” song cycle by Wally Gunn
Versions of three of my poems were included in “Rorqual,” a 60 minute song cycle by brilliant composer Wally Gunn. “Rorqual” premiered on Friday, December 6th at Temperance Hall in South Melbourne, Australia.
