books

Li-Young Lee reads primarily from his second collection, The City in Which I Love You, which was published the same year as this reading. He also reads one poem from his first collection, Rose (1986).

In this reading, originally given with Joni Wallace, Mary Jo Bang reads poems that would go on to be collected in The Last Two Seconds (2015) as well as a segment from her translation of "Canto III" of Dante's Inferno (2012).

Sandra Cisneros reads short stories from The House on Mango Street (1984) and Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991) and poetry from My Wicked Wicked Ways (1987).

Ander Monson reads two poems inspired by the movie Predator, along with four essays collected in Letters to a Future Lover (2015).

Myra Sklarew opens with a reading of poems by Richard Shelton, Tadeusz Rózewicz, and Takis Sinopoulos, continuing with poems from her collections The Science of Goodbyes (1982), Travels of the Itinerant Freda Aharon (1985), and Lithuania: New & Selected Poems (1995).

Randall Horton gives the inaugural reading in the Poetry Center’s Art for Justice series. Horton reads new work commissioned by the Poetry Center from a manuscript in progress titled #219128, as well as excerpts from Hook: A Memoir (2015). Ojalá Systems gives an introductory performance.

As part of the Institute for Inquiry and Poetics and the Art for Justice series, Reginald Dwayne Betts performs a portion of Felon: An American Washi Tale, a one-man play centered on the importance of books and paper in and after prison. Diana Marie Delgado leads a conversation with Betts and guest Joe Watson to conclude the reading, focused on the play, the Art for Justice series itself, and the Million Book Project.