Poet Mathias Svalina delivers Dream Delivery Service to Buffalo

Poet Mathias Svalina returns to Buffalo in mid-May for a month of writing and hand-delivering dreams via bike through his Dream Delivery Service. The visit will begin with a poetry reading at Just Buffalo Literary Center featuring Svalina and Sony Ton-Aime, poet and director of literary arts at the Chautauqua Institution, on May 14 at 7 p.m.

“With the Dream Delivery Service, I take subscribers, write daily dreams for them for a month, and deliver the dreams in little pink envelopes each morning,” Svalina said. “Since 2016, the project has been nomadic, traveling from city to city as much as I can by bicycle. The community of writers and artists in Buffalo is like nowhere else I’ve seen, and I’m inspired to briefly be a part of it again.”

In addition to delivering dreams, Svalina will take up a weekly residency in downtown Buffalo’s Reading Park at the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library. On Wednesdays, from noon-1 p.m. between May 18 and June 8, the public is invited to invent and write dreams with Svalina for the Reading Park’s landscape, which will become part of an interactive literary installation.

The Dream Delivery Service has been featured on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” the “BBC World News,” Vice and “60 Second Documentaries.” Svalina’s 2022 visit to Buffalo is supported by Just Buffalo Literary Center, the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library, New York State Council on the Arts, Public Espresso and Hostel Buffalo.

To subscribe for Dream Delivery Service in Buffalo from mid-May to mid-June, visit dreamdeliveryservice.com. To RSVP for the Dream Delivery Service poetry reading on May 14 or learn more about Svalina’s Reading Park residency, visit justbuffalo.org.