S6:E31 Marc Vincenz talks with Roxi Power

The Hive Poetry Collective

Marc Vincenz has been called the David Bowie of poetry, reinventing himself and exploring new poetic chops in each of his 40 books. Roxi Power talks with Vincenz about his newest book of surreal poems inThe King of Prussia is Drunk on Stars (Lavender Ink Press, 2024).

From the imperialism of Prussia to the purity of Iceland, Vincenz juxtaposes the monstrous with the meditative in his quiet lyrics of epic scope. Matthew Cooperman writes that "Vincenz conjures a centaur poetics where anything may be attached to anything else." What connects humans with woodworms? How do eels emerge "from the carcass of a waterlogged horse"? We follow the world-traveling and world-building eye of Vincenz across the globe, then perch quietly among constellations that "grow alongside the window" or under the apple trees among the stars, only to experience in his deep images again and again: "Where your eye is, there you grow."

Marc Vincenz is a poet, fiction writer, translator, editor, publisher, musician and artist. He has published over 40 books of poetry, fiction and translation. His latest poetry collections are A Splash of Cave Paint, and The King of Prussia is Drunk on Stars. His latest translation is An Audible Blue: Selected Poems (1963 - 2016) by celebrated Swiss poet and novelist, Klaus Merz, which won the 2023 Massachusetts Book Award for Translated Literature. His forthcoming poetry collections are Spells for the Wicked (Unlikely Books 2025) and No More Animal Poems with White Pine Press in 2026. Marc’s work has been translated into German, Russian, Romanian, French, Icelandic, and Chinese. Marc is the publisher for MadHat Press and New American Writing. He produces and hosts the biweekly reading series on Zoom, Lit Balm.