bio:
John Vieira has been working seriously in poetry and in visual-verbal (and other related) arts
for the past 30 years, with part of his work over this time, both lyric and experimental,
appearing as numerous books and chapbooks.
He has given readings of his
poems at many different venues—for instance, in New York City art galleries, at
festivals on both the east and west coasts including several of the annual
"Lowell Celebrates Kerouac" festivals in Lowell, Massachusetts
(including with accompaniment by David Amram), at festivals in the South Pacific, at
a "Poets Against the War" Washington, DC Reading for Peace &
Justice, in bars in
Boston, Cambridge (MA), and Washington, DC, at Adams House at Harvard
University, at The Writer's Center in DC, and at The Poetry Project at St.
Mark’s Church (NYC). [Artist photo: Susan Cassabon.]
A lengthy essay entitled "Ecstatic Writing: An
Appeal for the Reclamation of Poetry" appeared (in 1998) in The Bitter Oleander (vol. 4, no. 1), and
was nominated for the 1999 Pushcart Prize. (The essay was reprinted in
Listed in A Directory of American Poets and Fiction Writers
(New York: Poets & Writers, Inc., 2003), Contemporary Authors
(Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007), and Encyclopedia.com, an entry on his career with a
specimen of work appears in R. Kostelanetz, et
al., A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes,
2nd edition (New York: Schirmer Books, 2000).
In addition to the books referred to above, John's work
has also appeared in numerous and varied publications in the U.S. (including,
for example, AGNI, Many Mountains Moving and Rolling Stone) and in little magazines
in Canada, Brazil, Cuba, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Australia,
the South Pacific and Japan; as well as being shown in museums, galleries and other venues
in the U.S. and abroad (including Ghana and Australia);
and is held in private and university collections—for example: The University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections and Archives
/ The Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and
Visual Poetry (Iowa City);
Poets House (NYC); the Poetry/Rare Books Collection of the University of
Buffalo / State University of New York; Mills Library / the William Ready
Division of Archives and Research Collections at McMaster University (Canada); and Rare Books
and Manuscripts Library / The Ohio State University (Columbus).
Since the 1970s, in addition
to utilizing his photographs in his broader work, John has also involved
himself with shooting straight photography, working almost exclusively with
analog instant film (Polaroid, Impossible Project, Fuji). His work was part of
the historic open group show "SELF-PORTRAITR" at the Pace/MacGill Gallery in Midtown Manhattan, Summer 2006—with two of his
photos, "Portrait: The Light #1" and "Urban Self-portrait",
selected as gallery favorites. To see some mini-portfolios go to: biographies, or Saatchi Gallery Online.
John was born and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts, and
educated at parochial and private schools there. (B.A. with honors, Boston
College.)
A devoted practitioner of the Reality-Way of Adidam ("Radical" Adidam)
or The Always Priorly ego-Transcending Way of Reality
Itself—a worldwide gathering—he serves that communion with his time and energy.
Currently he lives—with Cindy Schaller, his wife of many
years—in the Washington, DC area and in Manhattan, continuing to work and write
(and, for a "living", freelancing as a broadcast archivist, mostly in
television news). Besides DC and NYC, John has also lived on Kauai in Hawaii
(and journeyed to other, more remote areas in the South Pacific), in the hills
of northern California, and in various places in New England.
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