Poets House at AWP: Poetry, Politics & Place with Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Naomi Shihab Nye & Luis J. Rodriguez

Three leading poets read their work and discuss their poetry-activism in New York, San Antonio, Los Angeles, and around the country. Each engages poetic practice and community building with projects that expand poetry’s place in our lives and culture: Rachel Eliza Griffiths through photography, Naomi Shihab Nye through writing for children, and Luis J. Rodriguez through publishing projects and political organizing. The transformative power of poetry brings these three together to talk about how we can make a better world. Moderated by Poets House Artistic Director Stephen Motika

Rachel Eliza Griffiths is a visual artist and poet. She is the author of four poetry collections and the recipient of numerous fellowships. Griffiths teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College and lives in Brooklyn.

Stephen Motika is the author of the poetry collection Western Practice and the editor of Tiresias: The Collected Poems of Leland Hickman. He is the publisher of Nightboat Books and the artistic director of Poets House.

Naomi Shihab Nye has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow (Library of Congress). She has received a Lavan Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and four Pushcart Prizes.

Luis J. Rodriguez was named Poet Laureate of Los Angeles in 2014. He is the author of fifteen books across a number of genres. He has been the recipient of a PEN West/Josephine Miles Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award. He serves as founding editor of Tia Chucha Press and cofounder and president of Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural and Bookstore in California.

Admission free for registered Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference (AWP) participants; for details, please visit the AWP website