Caldiero is a teacher, polyartist, sonosopher, and scholar of humanities and inter-media. He makes things that at times appear as language or pictures or music--
and then again, as the shape of your own mind.
Born in the ancient town of Licodia Eubea, near Catania, Sicily, Alex Caldiero immigrated with his family to the United States at age nine. Raised in Manhattan and Brooklyn, NY., he attended Queens College in Flushing, NY. He apprenticed to the sculptor-poet Michael Lekakis and the poet-bard Ignaziu Buttitta, and was the clandestine student and friend of experimentalist N.H. Pritchard. Caldiero has traveled thru Sicily, Sardinia, Turkey and Greece collecting proverbs, tales, and folk instruments. He is co-founder of Arba Sicula, the society for the preservation of the Sicilian language and traditions. He is co-recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant and from Utah Performing Arts Tour recipient of Best Poetry Award from the Association for Mormon Letters, and the Salt Lake City Mayor’s Award for Literature. He is senior artist in residence at Utah Valley University.
Publications include Sound Weave with Theta Naught (Differential Records), sonosuono (Elik), Poetry Is Wanted Here! (Dream Garden Press), Some Love (Signature Books), Who is the Dancer, What is the Dance (saltfront), and his work is anthologized in A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes (Routledge 3rd edition), Text-Sound Texts (Morrow, NY), Fire in the Pasture & Mother in Heaven (both from Peculiar Pages, CA), Immediate Present (Mormon Arts Center). Forthcoming: Per-Sonal Effects.
Caldiero is the subject of the documentary Alex Caldiero…in sound…in life.
Works
Bibliography
- MONAD, Clown War broadside, NYC, 1974.
- FROM STONE TO STAR, Incurve Press, NYC, 1977.
- LU LATTI DI LA MATRI/The Milk of the Mother, CSSSS, Catania, Sicily, 1980.
- FIVE POEMS, privately printed, 1992.
- OR, BOOK O' LIGHTS, limited edition, artist book, 1993.
- TOY BLOOD, privately printed, 1994.
- VARIOUS ATMOSPHERES, Signature Books, SLC, UT. 1998.
- ILLEGIBLE TATTOOS, limited edition, letter press artist book. Meyer & Liechty, Lindon, UT. 1999.
- AH-BH-GH, limited edition, letter press artist book. Kinde Nebeker, Salt Lake City, UT. 1999.
- BODY/DREAMS/ORGANS, Elik Press. SLC. 2005.
- ISLANDER, Longhouse Press, Vermont. 2007.
- POETRY IS WANTED HERE! Book of poems forthcoming from Dream Garden Press in 2010.
- SONONUONO, Elik Press, 2013.
- SOME LOVE, Signature Books, 2015
- WHO IS THE DANCER, WHAT IS THE DANCE, saltfront, 2016
Links
- Collision Course – a.k.a. Pillow Talk (Stage Performance)
- SandS CycleS (Film 30:00)
- Collision Course – a.k.a. Pillow Talk (Projected Installation)
- FareWell - To The End of the World As We Know It OR Dancing Your Way to Paradise!
- Fare Well and Hell-O
- Collision Course - a.k.a Pillow Talk: Text, Streaming, and Dance
- Sphota Probe
- In Winds of Sand
- Portraits in Dance (Film Series)
