Publications

Blue Guide

Blue Guide

A book of poems released by Four Way Books in 2018.

“There are so many reasons to praise Lee Briccetti's Blue Guide! She's a poet of the city and the country, but of the actual city and country—the phantasmagorias of O'Hara and Whitman couldn't be further from her measured, tough-minded way of seeing. To read her meditations on Rome and New York, and on rural life in farm country, in which her love of geology and architecture grounds her emotional life in the materiality of the world, is to gain a profound appreciation for what Seamus Heaney once called ‘the primal reach of the physical.’ ... But Briccetti's devotion to caring for the surfaces of the world by saying what really happened gives her work a wideness of scope that is rare in contemporary poetry. ... She patiently deploys a wide-ranging, but always accurate idiom, quietly musical, that aligns her with the work of Thom Gunn, George Oppen, and Lorine Niedecker.” Thomas Sleigh
“Lee Briccetti's latest poetry book, Blue Guide, opens a secret door into the parallel lives of poets—reality and reflection, writing techniques and raw feelings—and into the omnipresent sense of place as one of the anchors of the creative process.” Irina Moga, Split Rock Review


Day Mark

Day Mark

A book of poems released by Four Way Books in 2005.

“Just when you figure Lee Briccetti couldn't possibly give anything more to American Poetry, along comes this surprising first book, vivid, bittersweet (in the best sense of the term), perfectly balanced between art and heart. How wonderful to discover that as she was shoring up the roof and walls of Poets House, she was also building this other space, where word, flesh, memory, and our urban desires (and dreads) can freely and fully co-mingle. Reading Day Mark will leave you at times near breathless over the way the image, the music and deep invention of the poet slot together. The really grand books of poetry hold many wondrous and terrible worlds. Here, dear reader, in your hands, you hold the door, and the key to one of these. You shouldn't wait to know what she knows.” Cornelius Eady

Working with Lee Briccetti across many happy decades at Poets House was a revelation in imaginative programming and crowd appeal.

I recall so many different beautiful audiences—adults who cared about justice in Palestine / Israel, teenagers intrigued by William Stafford, adults grappling with intense grief—never did an event fail to find its people. Lee was always a joy to work with—thoughtful, well-organized, compassionate. One of my favorite administrators and poets anywhere, ever. ”

Naomi Shihab Nye

Essays & Interviews

The Poetic Species

The Poetic Species

A Conversation with Edward O. Wilson and Robert Hass, with a Foreword by Lee Briccetti. Released by Bellevue Literary Press in 2014.

Former United States Poet Laureate Robert Hass and internationally acclaimed entomologist Edward O. Wilson discuss evolution, education, and the promise of “consilience”–or the unity of knowledge–in addressing our biggest problems. As they explore the many ways that poetry and science enhance each other. In print for the first time, their shimmering dialogue is the outgrowth of a public conversation hosted by the American Museum of Natural History and Poets House, and published by Bellevue Literary Press. A testament to how science and the arts can join forces to educate and inspire, the book is also a passionate plea for conservation of all the planet's species.

“Enchanting. ... The Poetic Species is a wonderful read in its entirety, short yet infinitely simulating.” Maria Popova, The Marginalian


Essays Within Collections:

“Maps and Windows,” Lee Briccetti

Jane Cooper, A Radiance of Attention, Martha Collins and Celia Bland, eds. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2019)

“Pilgrims,” Lee Briccetti

Jean Valentine, This-World Company, Mohammed Kazim Ali and John Hoppenthaler, eds. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2013)



Assorted Writings:

Sky Notes Sonnets, The Poetry Society of America

The City and the Writer, Words Without Borders

Online interview, Lee Briccetti, The Woven Tale Press