Poetry, Poetry: A Reading in Boston, A Book Launch in New York

Aaah, so many poets, so little time. 

First up, Luisa Igloria, the author of nine books including Encanto (Anvil, 2004), In the Garden of the Three Islands (Moyer Bell/Asphodel, 1995), and Trill and Mordent (WordTech Editions, 2005), reads at the Barnes & Noble at Emerson College with fellow poet Eamon Wall, the author of four collections of poetry, Refuge at De Soto Bend (2004), The Crosses (2000), Iron Mountain Road (1997), and Dyckman-200th Street (1994), all published by Salmon Publishing in Ireland.

Details:  Barnes & Noble, 114 Boylston Street, Boston, on Thursday, April 10, at 6 p.m.

Second, Language for a New Century:  Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia , & Beyond, edited by Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal and Ravi Shankar, and with a foreword by Carolyn Forché, launches at New York’s Rubin Museum, on Apr. 25, 7 PM.  The Burmese poet Kyi-May Kuang, who self met over two years ago now, in the 2005 Berlin “Sending Signals” conference, has some poetry in this one!  Here are just a few of the to-die-for blurbs: 

“This extraordinary, library-in-one-volume: what a resource! Those to whom poetry is essential as the supreme use of language will find the work of many poets they have never before come to, and those readers who have limited themselves to prose have the opportunity to discover how the poet outreaches everything prose can illuminate in who and what we are, no matter where, on the map. Nine thematic groupings of the work bring us wonderfully, almost perilously close to ultimate experience in childhood, love, war, exile, the inextricable relations between politics and the personal, the tragic and the ironic, the wisdom in sorrow and humor, that only the most intense imagination can plumb. That of the poet. The realm of imagination is one. This anthology gives entry to its vast _expression in the Middle East and Asia , including the changing sensibilities of poets in the ever-growing world of immigration. Assembled here not the Tower of Babel , but the astonishment and subtlety inherent in many languages and their experimental modes to expand the power of words. The introductions to each section offer perceptions engagingly, against which to place one’s own readings. The editors have boldly envisaged and compiled a beautiful achievement for world literature.”
                                                —Nobel Laureate, Nadine Gordimer
 
“Language for a New Century is a symphonic sweep of beckoning cries, praises, prayers, curses, ruminations and revelations.  An ensemble rich with diverse voices, here the old and the new converge, and something wholly human and futuristic emerges—something that possesses a robust lyricism—shining its light, its illuminated certainty into the twenty-first century.  This marvelous anthology assembles a multitude of voices intent on a purposeful, deep singing.”