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Join poets Cynthia Cruz, Carlie Hoffman, and Allison Benis White for a remote reading and celebration in honor of Cynthia Cruz’s newest collection of poetry, Back to the Woods (Four Way Books, 2023).

About the presenters:

Cynthia Cruz is the author of eight collections of poems: Back to the Woods (2023), Hotel Oblivion (Four Way Books, 2022), Guidebooks for the Dead (Four Way Books, 2020), Dregs (Four Way Books, 2018), How the End Begins (Four Way Books, 2016), Wunderkammer (Four Way Books, 2014), The Glimmering Room (Four Way Books, 2012) and Ruin (Alice James Books, 2006) as well as a novel, Steady Diet of Nothing, (Four Way Books, 2023). Disquieting: Essays on Silence, a collection of critical essays exploring the concept of silence, was published by Book*hug in the spring of 2019. The Melancholia of Class, an exploration of melancholia and the working class, was published by Repeater Books in July of 2021.

Cruz earned a BA in English Literature at Mills College, an MFA in poetry at Sarah Lawrence College, an MFA in Art Writing from the School of Visual Arts, and an MA in German Language and Literature from Rutgers University. She is the recipient of fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony and a Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University. Her collection, Hotel Oblivion, was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the European Graduate School where her research focuses on Hegel and madness.

Carlie Hoffman is the author When There Was Light (Four Way Books, 2023) and This Alaska (Four Way Books, 2021), winner of the NCPA Gold Award in poetry and a finalist for the Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award. She is the translator from the German of Weiße Schatten / White Shadows: Anneliese Hager and the Camera-less Photograph (Atelier Éditions, 2023). Carlie’s honors include the 92Y “Discovery” / Boston Review poetry prize, a Poets & Writers Amy Award, the Loose Translation Award, and fellowships from Columbia University and the City University of New York and her work has been published in Los Angeles Review of Books, Kenyon Review, Poetry Daily, Boston Review, New England Review, Jewish Currents and other publications. Carlie lives in Brooklyn, where she edits Small Orange Journal and is a Lecturer of creative writing at the State University of New York at Purchase.

Allison Benis White is the author of The Wendys; Please Bury Me in This, winner of the Rilke Prize, and Small Porcelain Head, selected by Claudia Rankine for the Four Way Books Levis Prize in Poetry and named a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award and the California Book Award. Her first book, Self-Portrait with Crayon, received the Cleveland State University Poetry Center Book Prize. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, Pushcart Prize XLI: Best of the Small Presses, and elsewhere. She is an associate professor at the University of California, Riverside.

Nuyorican Poets Café & Poets House present an evening hosted by Caridad De La Luz “La Bruja” with live Salsa music by the Combo Rican Ensemble of Puerto Rico, and featuring Nuyorican poet  Elisabet Velasquez. With open mic chosen by lottery and a dance party! Celebrate decades of literary creativity and friendship with two of New York’s beloved and preeminent poetry centers under one roof.

Presented with the generous support of the Battery Park City Authority.

Poet and visual artist Keisha-Gaye Anderson reads work by Lucille Clifton, plus new and recent work of her own. Check out Keisha-Gaye’s hybrid workshop starting January 25, You Heard Write!

Keisha-Gaye Anderson is a Jamaican-born poet and visual artist. She is the author of the poetry collections Everything Is Necessary (Aquarius Press), the award-winning A Spell for Living, and Gathering the Waters (Jamii Publishing). Keisha is a past participant of VONA and Callaloo writing workshops, and was short listed for the Small Axe Literary award. She has been a Brooklyn Public Library Artist in Residence. Keisha holds an M.F.A. from The City College, CUNY.

Poet, essayist, and cultural strategist Kay Ulanday Barrett reads Mejdulene B. Shomali’s “I Keep Waking Up in America,” plus their own poem “Said the tourmaline around your neck,” dedicated to the Anti-Violence Project & Prism Arts Group.

Kay Ulanday Barrett is a poet, essayist, cultural strategist, and A+ napper. They are the winner of the 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, a winner of the 2022 Next Book Residency with Tin House, a James Baldwin Fellowship at MacDowell, and most recently in 2023, residencies at Baldwin for the Arts and Millay Arts awarded by Lambda Literary. Their second book, More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) received a 2021 Stonewall Honor Book Award by the American Library Association and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. They have featured at The United Nations, The Lincoln Center, The Hemispheric Institute, The Whitney, The MoMA, Symphony Space, The Ford Foundation, Brooklyn Museum, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Manchester PRIDE, Sesame Street, & more. Their contributions are found in The New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Colorlines, Literary Hub, The Advocate, Poetry Unbound, Split This Rock, Al Jazeera, NYLON, Vogue, The Rumpus, The Lily, and elsewhere. For more info: kaybarrett.net & @Brownroundboi on social media.

Image Description: Light brown round Filipine/x person wearing glasses, a blue sweater, floral hat, and headphones.

Kwame Dawes—prolific poet, editor, and critic—reads “Acceptance” by his mentor (and father) Neville Dawes, plus his own poem “Sturge Town Redux.”

Kwame Dawes is the author of numerous books of poetry and other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. His most recent collection UnHistory, was co-written with John Kinsella (Peepal Tree Press, UK 2022). Dawes is a George W. Holmes University Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner. He teaches in the Pacific MFA Program and is the Series Editor of the African Poetry Book Series, Director of the African Poetry Book Fund, and Artistic Director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. He is a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Kwame Dawes is the winner of the prestigious Windham/Campbell Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Dawes was awarded the Order of Distinction Commander class by the Government of Jamaica, in 2022.

Writer and teaching artist Josephine Ishmon reads “Disbelief” by the late Kamilah Aisha Moon, then “Failing and Flying” by the late Jack Gilbert.

Click here to check out Josephine’s workshop A Celebration of Life!

Josephine Ishmon is a writer and educator. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the New School and has lead workshops in New York City Public Schools and NYS Women’s Correctional Facilities. Her writing has been published in the Boston Review and has garnered fellowships from the Norman Mailer Writer’s Colony as well as the Mellon Foundation.

Poet and workshop leader Tacey M. Atsitty reads a sonnet by Nicholas Friedman and new work from her forthcoming collection, (At) Wrist. Click here to check out Tacey’s 4-Week workshop starting Oct 31: Remembering Emblem Poetry!

Watch Tacey read from her first book, Rain Scald here!

Tacey M. Atsitty, Diné (Navajo), is Tsénahabiłnii (Sleep Rock People) and born of Ta’neeszahnii (Tangle People). She was born in Logan, UT, grew up in Kirtland, NM but is originally from Cove, AZ. She holds bachelor’s degrees from Brigham Young University and the Institute of American Indian Arts, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University.  

Atsitty is a recipient of the Brittingham Prize for Poetry and other awards. She holds bachelor’s degrees from Brigham Young University and the Institute of American Indian Arts, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University. Her work has appeared in, or is forthcoming from: POETRY, EPOCH, Kenyon Review Online, Prairie Schooner, When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, and other publications. Her first book is Rain Scald (University of New Mexico Press, 2018), and her second book (At) Wrist is forthcoming from University of Wisconsin Press in Fall 2023. 

She is the director of the Navajo Film Festival, a member of Advisory Council for BYU’s Charles Redd Center for Western Studies, a board member for Lightscatter Press, and founding member of the Intermountain All-Women Hoop Dance Competition. She is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at Florida State University in Tallahassee, where she lives with her husband. Photo by Mandi White. Learn more about Tacey here: https://taceymatsitty.com/ 

Poet David M. Perkins reads “Mozart and Salieri” from John Heath-Stubbs: Collected Poems, then his own poem “Making Faces” from In from Forever (Ice Cube Press).

Click Here to check out David’s 6-Week Workshop starting Nov 5, The Art of it All!

David M. Perkins is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently, In From Forever; and previously, Post-Modern Blues, and I May or May Not Love You, all from Ice Cube Press. An amateur Tchaikovsky scholar, his poems, articles, book reviews, and essays have appeared in: Christopher Street Magazine, Penthouse, Broad Street Review, High Plains Literary Review, Chariton Review, The Bloomsbury Review, and for The Wordsworth Trust (UK), among others.

Poet and artist Desirée Alvarez reads “Dear Frida” by Alice Paalen Rahon (translated by Mary Ann Caws), and her own poem “Diary of the Ghost of a Mestiza,” from Raft of Flame.

Click here to check out Desirée’s Nov 12 Workshop, Art & Poetry Sandwich!

Desirée Alvarez is a New York City born poet and painter. Among her awards are fellowships from: Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, and European Capital of Culture. Her second book, Raft of Flame, 2020, received the Lake Merritt Poetry Prize from Omnidawn. Devil’s Paintbrush, her first book, received the May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize.

Her poetry is anthologized in Other Musics: New Latina Poets (University of Oklahoma Press), Stronger Than Fear: Poems of Empowerment, Compassion, and Social Justice (Cave Moon Press), and What Nature (Boston Review). Her poems are published in Poetry, Lit Hub, Massachusetts Review, Fence, The Iowa Review, and Ecotone. Alvarez exhibits her paintings in galleries and museums widely and teaches at CUNY and The Juilliard School.

Bonus video: Desirée Alvarez reads “Dear Frida” by Alice Paalen Rahon in the original French

Poet and educator Lory Bedikian reads “cutting greens” by Lucille Clifton, and her own poem “Ode to Their Leaving,” from her forthcoming book Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body.

Click here to check out Lory’s Nov 16 Workshop, The Ode!

Lory Bedikian‘s collection The Book of Lamenting won the Philip Levine Prize and her forthcoming book Jagadakeer: Apology to the Body won the 2023 Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Book Prize. Several of Bedikian’s poems received the First Prize Award in the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry as part of the 2022 Nimrod Literary Awards.  Her work is published in Miramar, Tin House, The Los Angeles Review, Northwest Review, BOULEVARD, The Adroit Journal, Literary Matters, Orion, wildness,  and was featured on Pádraig Ó Tuama’s Poetry Unbound podcast. Her poem “The Mechanic,” is included in the anthology Border Lines: Poems of Migration, KNOPF, 2020.  Bedikian’s manuscript-in-progress received a 2021 grant from the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. New work is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Guesthouse and Massachusetts Review’s “Revisiting WOMAN: An Issue, 50 Years Later.” Bedikian earned an MFA from the University of Oregon. She teaches poetry workshops in Los Angeles.