natalie louise tombasco
bio
Natalie Louise Tombasco is a poet, editor, and teacher from Staten Island, NY, “the forgotten borough.” She’s the author of the chapbook Collective Inventions (CutBank Books, 2021) and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Butler University in Indianapolis, IN. Currently, she is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at Florida State University where her research interests center around poetry, feminist theory, and ecocriticism. She serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Southeast Review. Recent work can be found in Best New Poets, Verse Daily, Gulf Coast, Black Warrior Review, Diode Poetry Journal, Copper Nickel, and The Cincinnatti Review. Her debut collection of poems, Milk for Gall, was a finalist for the Persea’s Lexi Rudnisky Prize, the Philip Levine Poetry Prize, The Journal’s Wheeler Prize, and the Wisconsin Poetry Series’ Brittingham & Felix Pollak Prizes.
fascicles
Collective Inventions, finalist for CutBank’s 2020 Chapbook Contest.
Welcome to the hyperactive neon of Natalie Tombasco’s world. You’ll meet parking-lot Lolitas, Shitshow Barbie, the Queen of Sourpuss, the girl with an appetite of an ogre, and so many more women on the edge of an incendiary moment. These poems are written in Technicolor, raging with fuchsia and turquoise and will take you on a wild ride of poetic abandon. Get ready to have your minds blown to smithereens. A gorgeous debut.
Barbara Hamby, author of BABEL
Tombasco’s COLLECTIVE INVENTIONs is not only a delight to read several times, but the poems therein become language sorties that will thrill you and amaze you. This is a fine introduction to a poet emerging from her corner punching hard and taking immaculate steps to make sure you don’t forget her work too fast. From the first to the last, these poems are irresistible.
Virgil Suarez, author of THE PAINTED BUNTING’S LAST MOLT
“These poems unfurl with equal parts ire and love.”
“Visual, rhythmic, frank and honest.”
“Somewhat graphic, corporeal, luscious, these poems dwell on the trails of becoming. They pit comfort against anguish in a relatable, utterly modern voice.”
CutBank’s Judges
fieldnotes
- “Viciousness in the Kitchen” – Mississippi Review (forthcoming)
- Lolita’s Exorcism” – The Cincinnati Review (forthcoming)
- “Peonies in Utero” and “Birds!” – Diode Poetry Journal
- “Drawbridge + Moat” – Black Warrior Review (print), Reprint in Verse Daily
- “Ghosthood” – Josephine Quarterly
- “Nomenclature” – Best New Poets (print)
- “King Hunt 1.2” – Gulf Coast (print)
- “Lolita’s Dissection” – Copper Nickel
- “The Descent into Dickinson” – Peach Mag
- “Dream Vision of Frank O’Hara” – Hobart Pulp
- “On Becoming Bertha” – Fairy Tale Review (print)
- “King Hunt 5.1” – Counterclock
- “Girl in Bathtub, Flicking Dried Rose Petal” – The Rumpus
- “Brief Things That Will Kill Me: Being Favored” – Hayden’s Ferry Review
- “Brief List of Things That Will Kill Me: This Vessel” – Southern Indiana Review (print)
- “Donut Shop Pantoum” – Sugar House Review
- “Portrait of a Queen with Dirty Martini, Covered in Cat Hair” – Yalobusha Review
craft talks
- Dana Levin – NOW DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE – Southeast Review (2023)
- Alessandra Lynch – PRETTY TRIPWIRE – Southeast Review (2021)
- Mary Jo Bang – PURGATORIO –Southeast Review (2021)
- Diane Seuss – FRANK: SONNETS – Southeast Review – (2021)
- Nick Flynn – I WILL DESTROY YOU – Southeast Review (2020)
- Alice Bolin – DEAD GIRLS – Southeast Review (2019)
- Monica Youn – BLACKACRE – Booth: A Journal (2018)
- Brenda Shaughnessy – SO MUCH SYNTH – Booth: A Journal (2017)
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