23rd Annual Poets House Showcase Opening Reading with Bill Berkson, Dorothea Lasky, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, and Elizabeth Willis

Readings by poets Bill Berkson (Expect Delays, Coffee House Press), Dorothea Lasky (Rome, Liveright), Rowan Ricardo Phillips (Heaven, Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and Elizabeth Willis (Alive: New and Selected Poems, New York Review of Books) open the 2015 Poets House Showcase, our free exhibit featuring all of the new poetry books and poetry-related texts published in the United States in a single year from over 650 commercial, university, and independent presses.

Preceded by the Showcase Opening Reception. Exhibition on view through August 16.

Bill Berkson is a poet, critic, and Professor Emeritus at the San Francisco Art Institute. His numerous collections include Expect Delays (2014) and Portrait and Dream: New & Selected Poems, winner of the Balcones Prize for Best Book of Poetry of 2010. He lives in San Francisco and Manhattan.

Dorothea Lasky‘s most recent book is Rome (2014). Her previous collections of poetry include Thunderbird (2012) and Black Life (2010). She also co-edited Open the Door: How to Excite Young People about Poetry (2013). She is Assistant Professor at Columbia University.

Rowan Ricardo Phillips is the author of two books of poetry: Heaven (2015) and The Ground (2012). His awards include a Whiting Writers’ Award, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, the GLCA New Writers Award for Poetry, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in New York City and teaches at Stony Brook University.

Elizabeth Willis is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Alive: New and Selected Poems (2015). Her book, Address (2011), received the PEN New England / L. L. Winship Prize for Poetry. She is Professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Co-presented by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Poets House as part of the River To River Festival 2015. A Lower Manhattan Cultural Council public engagement initiative, River To River inspires residents, workers, and visitors in Lower Manhattan, by connecting them to artists, new ideas and perspectives, and other art-lovers to demonstrate the role that artists play in creating vibrant, sustainable communities.