An Evening of Poetry and Conversation with RHINA P. ESPAILLAT

Meridians and the Poetry Center at Smith College invite the local community to a night of poetry and conversation celebrating the life and work of Rhina P. Espaillat. The evening’s events will bring Ms. Espaillat—a bilingual Dominican-American poet and translator who has published eleven collections of poetry—to Smith College along with scholars Nancy Kang, and Silvio A. Torres-Saillant, authors of the recently published book, The Once and Future Muse:The Poetry and Poetics of Rhina P. Espaillat. This event is also co-sponsored by the Latin American & Latino/a Studies, English Language & Literature, Study of Women and Gender, and Spanish & Portuguese departments.

On Thursday, November 29th, a brief reception will be held in Wright Hall from 4:00pm to 4:30pm, light refreshments to be served. Immediately following the reception, Ms. Espaillat will give a poetry reading and brief Q&A, at the Poetry Center from 4:30pm to 5:30pm. A book talk with scholars Nancy Kang and Silvio A. Torres-Saillant entitled “Poet of the Future: Rhina P. Espaillat’s Enduring Americanness,” will take place later that evening in Dewey Common Room from 7:30pm to 8:30pm. These events are free and open to the public. For disability access or accommodation requests, please call 413-585-2407. To request a sign language interpreter, call 413-585-2071 (voice or TTY) or send an email to ods@smith.edu at least 10 days before the event.

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Meridians y el Centro de Poesía en Smith College invita a la comunidad local para una noche de poesía y diálogo, celebrando la vida y las obras de Rhina P. Espaillat. Los eventos traerán la Sra. Espaillat—una poeta dominicana-americana bilingüe y traductora que ha publicado once colecciones de poesía—a Smith College junto con los profesores Nancy Kang y Silvio A. Torres-Saillant, autores del libro recientemente publicado, The Once and Future Muse: The Poetry and Poetics of Rhina P. Espaillat. Este evento es patrocinado en colaboración con los departamentos de Estudios de Latinoamerica, Inglés, Estudio de Mujeres y Género, y Español & Portugués.

El jueves, 29 de noviembre, una breve recepción se llevará a cabo en Wright Hall de 4pm a 4:30pm, refrigerios ligeros serán servidos. Inmediatamente después de la recepción, la Sra. Espaillat dará una lectura de su poesía con una breve oportunidad para preguntas y respuestas de 4:30pm a 5:30pm. Una charla con los profesores Nancy Kang y Silvio A. Torres-Saillant llamada “Poet of the Future: Rhina P. Espaillat’s Enduring Americanness,” se llevará a cabo más tarde en la sala de Dewey Hall de 7:30pm a 8:30pm. Estos eventos son gratis y abiertos al público. Para facilidad de acceso o arreglos especiales, por favor llame a 413-585-2407. Para solicitar un intérprete de lenguaje de señas, llame a 413-585-2071 (voz alta o TTY) o mande un correo electrónico a ods@smith.edu al menos 10 días antes del evento.

Latinx Poetry Reading in Celebration of National Poetry Month Featuring ELIZABETH ACEVEDO, PEGGY ROBLES-ALVARADO with Boston Poet Laureate DANIELLE LEGROS GEORGES

Part of the 2018 Latinx Poetry Reading and Workshop Series at Harvard University

ELIZABETH ACEVEDO was born and raised in New York City and her poetry is infused with Dominican bolero and her beloved city’s tough grit. She holds a BA in Performing Arts from The George Washington University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Maryland. With over fourteen years as a performing poet, Acevedo has graced stages nationally and internationally including renowned venues such as The Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts, South Africa’s State Theatre, The Bozar in Brussels, the National Library of Kosovo and many others. S. Acevedo is a National Slam Champion, a Cave Canem Fellow, Cantomundo Fellow, and participant of the Callaloo Writer’s Workshop. She is the author of the chapbook, Beastgirl & Other Origin Myths (YesYes Books, 2016) and her debut novel, The Poet X (HarperCollins) will be published in March of 2018.

PEGGY ROBLES-ALVARADO is a tenured New York City educator with graduate degrees in elementary and bilingual education. She is a 2017 Pushcart Prize nominee, a CantoMundo, Academy for Teachers and Home School Fellow as well as a two-time International Latino Book Award winner and author of Conversations With My Skin and Homage to the Warrior Women. As a former teen mother and an initiated priestess in the Lukumi and Palo spiritual systems, Peggy uses her incredible rhythmic energy to celebrate womanhood and honor cultural rituals. She is a 2014 BRIO performance poet award winner and in 2016 she was named one of the 25 Most Influential Women of the Bronx, a BCA Arts Fund, and Spaceworks Bronx Community Artist Grant recipient. Peggy has been published in 92Y’s #wordswelivein, NACLA, ¡Manteca! An Anthology of Afro-Latin@ Poets, The Center for Puerto Rican Studies, The Bronx Memoir Project, The Other Side of Violet Anthology and the forthcoming anthology Latina Voices. She has been featured on HBO Habla Women, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Poets & Writers Connecting Cultures Reading, and The BADD!ASS Women Festival. Through Robleswrites Productions she has produced and edited the following anthologies: The Abuela Stories Project (2016) and Mujeres, The Magic, The Movement and The Muse (2017) as well as directed the performance of Live Big Girl at The National Black Theater. For more information please visit Robleswrites.com and Abuelastories.com.

City of Boston Poet Laureate DANIELLE LEGROS GEORGES is a professor in the Creative Arts and Learning Division at Lesley University. A writer and poet, Legros Georges has been widely recognized a variety of recognition for her work with and recent literary awards such as: the 2014 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship in Poetry; the 2012 Massachusetts Cultural Council Finalist in Poetry; Lesley University Faculty Development Grants; and a 2013 Black Metropolis Research Consortium Fellowship/Andrew W. Mellon Grant. Legros Georges work has been published in a wide variety of publications including The Boston Globe, World Literature Today, The Caribbean Writer, Callaloo, Poeisis, The American Poetry Review and many authors and is the author of the collection Maroon. Legros Georges was born in Haiti and grew up in Boston’s Haitian community in Mattapan. She received a B.S. in Communication Studies from Emerson College, and holds an M.F.A. in English and Creative Writing from New York University.

The Inaugural Latinx Poetry Reading and workshop series in the Spring of 2018 was organized by Melissa Castillo-Garsow to promote a diversity of voices at Harvard, celebrate Latinx voices in poetry, and foster poetic connections with the greater Boston area. This event is sponsored by the Provostial Fund for Arts and Humanities, Observatorio Cervantes, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration and Rights; the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) and the Committee on Degrees in History and Literature.

Workshop, Open Mic and Reception with CARMEN BARDEGUEZ-BROWN

Acclaimed poet CARMEN BARDEGUEZ-BROWN will host the poetry workshop “Poetry like bread is for everyone/ La Poesia como el pan es para todos” followed by an open mic, performance and reception.

Schedule of events:

5:30-7 p.m. Workshop

7 p.m. Break, Snacks, open mic signup

7:15-8 p.m. Open Mic

8-8:30 p.m. Performance

8:30-9 p.m. Reception

Free!

Carmen Bardeguez-Brown work was showcased in the documentary: Latino Poets in the United States. She has been invited to read at The Nuyorican Poets Café, The Fez, Mad Alex Foundation, Smoke, The Soho Arts Festival, Long wood Gallery, The Kitchen, La Casa Azul, New Years Alternative Poetry Marathon at Dixon Place, The Boricua College Poetry Series, Caribbean Theater, Word Festival 2013 and many other venues in the tri-state area. Some of her work has been performed by Felipe Luciano’s Poets’s Choir and Butch Morris Conduction series #27 performed at The Whitney Museum. Her work has been published in Tribes, Long Shot, Fuse, School Voices, Anthology: Aloud Voices from the Nuyorican, ¡Manteca!: An Anthology of AfroLatin@ Poets and Pha’titude. She has two poetry books: Straight from the Drums: Al Ritmo del Tamborcould be and Dreaming Rhythms Despertando Silenciospublished by Miguel Estepario. Her third book of poetry: Meditation on Love, Dance and Loss will be published late this year. She is one of 50 Puerto Ricans showcased in the exhibition Homenaje created and curated by Ricardo Muniz that is currently housed at the Centro for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College.

This event is sponsored by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) in collaboration with the Provostial Fund for Arts and Humanities, Observatorio Cervantes, the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History, the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration and Rights; and the Committee on Degrees in History and Literature.

Poets & Pints: October 11

Join Porter Square Books in their celebration of poetry: Poets & Pints

The greater Somerville and Cambridge area is lucky to have such a vibrant poetry community. So, once a month we will gather at the community space at Aeronaut on the Duck Village stage, to celebrate that community with readings by three local poets.
The event will feature a social hour from 6-7 in which you can grab a beer and converse with the poets, hosts, and other poetry fans. The formal reading will be from 7-8 and will feature three local poets reading from their latest works.
The poets reading on October 11 are:

Poems by PAULA BONNELL have appeared in a variety of print and online publications including APR, Reviews — Hopkins, Hudson, Manhattan Poetry, Southern Poetry, Women’s of Books — and independents such as Gargoyle, Invisible City, and Rattle. Even in newspapers — The Real Paper and a Sunday Boston Herald. Also in 4 collections — Airs & Voices, which Mark Jarman selected for the Ciardi Prize; Message, which includes “Midwest” as heardon The Writer’s Almanac and “Eurydice”, chosen for a Poet Lore narrative poetry publication award; and two chapbooks, Before the Alphabet – a story in free verse of a child’s kindergarten year, and tales retold, published in April 2017 — new takes on stories you’ll recognize.

SCOTT RUESCHER’s full-length collection of poems, Waiting for the Light to Change, was published by Prolific Press in May 2017. Some of the poems in the book have won the 2016 Write Prize from Able Muse magazine, the 2015 Rebecca Lard Award from Poetry Quarterly, and, in both 2013 and 2014, the Erika Mumford Prize from the New England Poetry Club. Others have appeared in recent issues of Origins Journal, Solstice, About Place, Agni Online, The Harvard Educational Review, Shadowgraph Quarterly, and The Somerville News. A shameless “evangelist for reality” who declaims “its glitzy multitudinosity in long cinematic sentences” (according to Tony Hoagland), he administers the Arts in Education program at Harvard Graduate School of Education and teaches English in the Boston University Prison Education Program.

NATALIE SHAPERO is the Professor of the Practice of Poetry at Tufts University and an editor at large of the Kenyon Review. Her poetry collections are Hard Child and No Object.

This event is free and open to the public!

Local poets at Brookline Booksmith

Join three local poets for an evening of reading and discussion at Brookline Booksmith.

In ZVI SESLING’s Fire Tongue, the poems are precise and unsparing as they probe old questions of how and why the unspeakable enters our lives. In terse, suspenseful language and lines that are as light as their subjects they carry are heavy, indeed ominous, Sesling looks for hope, for what can redeem us. The poet finds the answer in our ability to listen, to feel, to own a conscience, and to value life.

GLORIA MINDOCK’s Whiteness of Bone pits hope and peace against oppression and death. MINDOCK gathers the eye witness accounts of the voiceless, the unheard, and crafts a voice in their stead. From El Salvador to Rwanda, Darfur to the Congo, mass graves and war crimes deafen and suffocate. When such darkness goes ignored, the gaping maw of the abyss grows ever larger still.

LEN KRISAK’s Afterimage is a masterfully-crafted collection of poems in which we see the persistence of history into the present — the ancient market under the polish of urban architecture, the thrum of Roman crowds amid present-day Boston. Horace and Ovid exist alongside Jeopardy! and Clark Kent. Whether in a grand, public mode or quietly elegiac and personal, the poems record our contemporary life, often noting the images from such a distant and literary past strikingly alive in the present.

This event is free and open to the public. Copies of these books are currently for sale at Brookline Booksmith.