On Thursday, November 12, I went to a Poets Out Loud event at Fordham University. It was coordinated by my awesome friend and fellow writer, Li Yun Alvarado, who read some of her own work at the event. There were folks there from Acentos, the Fordham creative writing program, and the city at large.
In addition to Alvarado, three other poets read: Tara Betts, Rachel McKibbens, and Willie Perdomo. I was not familiar with their work before the event, but I am now a bonafide fan of each poet: I own books, I follow blogs, I quote favorite lines...
Tara Betts is a native of Chicago and a Cave Canem fellow. Her poems explore issues of urban life, race, and gender. Rachel McKibbens is the founder of the Right Coast Writers Brigade and her narrative poems are about coming of age, motherhood, and violence against women and children. Willie Perdomo has been described as the unofficial poet laureate of the Puerto Rican Diaspora by Junto Diaz, who also proclaimed that what Perdomo " knows about being of color, being between languages, being poor, being a man, being in trouble, could save your life."
There is nothing like listening to a poet read her own work, so I am including links to audio and video of each poet reading. I was not able to find a recording of Li Yun reading, so you will find a link to the text of one of her poems below. I hope you enjoy the pieces.
Discover these great poets and support their work!
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the poetry reading i went to on friday evening was of cave canem artists! you would have loved it. lots thoughtfulness, lots of natural hair haha.
ReplyDeletelet me know if you want to get in touch with lis houston about their work or events.
further, the author who wrote PUSH, now the movie precious, is a part of cave canem. interesting interesting...
I wish I could have gone! Thank you for sharing these talented writers' work with us. I especially love Rachel McKibbens' dark and harrowing work.
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