The New York Times Tracks the Astro Poets' Spark

At the New York Times, Rachel Syme speaks with poets Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky about their Twitter handle @astropoets and its origins. The poet-astrologers' NYT profile comes on the eve of their forthcoming book, to be published by Macmillan's Flatiron Books. "The universe is a swirling cosmic cocktail of galaxies made up of specks of dust, and Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky are alive and writing poetry in it," Syme begins. From there: 

The two poets, who are also best friends and creative collaborators, are always thinking about the stars. The first thing the pair ever talked about, when they met in a Brooklyn loft in 2010, while drinking cheap champagne at an after-party for a poetry reading, was the movement of the constellations. “Alex walked up to me and told me he was a Sagittarius,” said Ms. Lasky, 39. “And I knew, it was going to work. When a Sagittarius spots an Aries across a room, there’s an immediate connection.”

“I used to tell everyone that Aries and Sagittarius are the strongest astrological match,” said Mr. Dimitrov, 33. The poets were sitting across from me in a velvet banquette at the dark Temple Bar in the NoLIta neighborhood of Manhattan. Mr. Dimitrov cut a sleek profile, wearing a black leather jacket and a nonchalant smudge of kohl eyeliner. Ms. Lasky wore piles of jewelry on every exposed surface of her body, and looked like a modern incarnation of the elegant mystic Madame Blavatsky. Together, under the light of the dim Edison bulbs, they looked like members of a long-lost 1970s prog-rock band. “Aries women just love me,” Mr. Dimitrov went on. “I wish I could get married to an Aries woman, but alas, I like men. So this is the next best thing. I guess we are in a ‘spiritual marriage.’ I always refer to our Twitter as a marriage.”

Read more at the New York Times.