Home, poet and songwriter DB Leonard plays guitar while we read poems that invoke
the meaning of home.

Part of NYC Lit Fest 2003

Cultural critic Eliot Weinberger and poet Bei Dao discuss the ways in which poetry can respond to cultural and political disenfranchisement, and to exile from one’s home. Bei Dao will also read from his poetry.

Part of NYC Lit Fest 2003

For the past 28 years, Clayton Eshleman has been investigating Ice-Age paintings and engravings found in caves in southwestern France. He will discuss the connections between cave art and poetic imagining, show slides of cave images, and read from Juniper Fuse, a book of prose and poetry that is the culmination of his explorations.

Clayton Eshleman will discuss translating poetry by Aimé Césaire and César Vallejo as a catalyst for conversation about translation at large. Participants are invited to bring in examples of their own translations to read and discuss or examples by other translators that they value or feel critical about.

Alistair Paterson, editor of Poetry New Zealand, one of New Zealand’s leading poetry magazines, travels to New York to present the magazine to new audiences and to meet poets who have been, or wish to be, included in its pages.

Join storyteller Julia Morris for a morning of spooky chants and hair-raising poems to celebrate Halloween.

Stanley Kunitz will read from his work and take part in a discussion. The Group for Contemporary Music will present newly commissioned settings of the poet’s work from Milton Babbitt, Charles Wuorinen, Dave Douglas, Eve Beglarian and Paul Scott Goodman.

Since 1995, poetry has thrived in New York City’s public library branches because of the Poets House initiative, Poetry in The Branches. Collections are fresh and current, librarians are well-versed in poetry programming, and in some locations poetry circulation has tripled because of this program. Conceived and developed as a replicable program model, PITB has now entered a phase of national expansion. Poets House brings the PITB model to librarians all over the country via intensive trainings.

What is political poetry in the 21^st century, and who is its audience? How do form and language play a part in poetry that examines the conflicts of our time? Panelists explore these and other questions.

With Ariel Dorfman, April Bernard, Robert Bly, Rafael Campo, Martín Espada, John Felstiner, Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Galway Kinnell, Margaret Sayers Peden, Gary Soto & others.