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Rigoberto González ("Latino Poetry: Places We Call Home") and other poets take turns reading their poems aloud in English and Spanish, discussing their meaning in English. Talkback afterwards.
The event is free but registration is required. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. After the discussion, there will be a talkback period and a book signing and sale with Watchung Booksellers.
Open Book / Open Mind is sponsored by Montclair Public Library Foundation, Watchung Booksellers, the New Jersey Council on Humanities, Rosemary Iversen, David and Mary Lee Jones, and an anonymous donor. We are also grateful for the generous support of our in-kind sponsors, First Congregational Church of Montclair, The George, and Amanti Vino. To support Open Book / Open Mind and other library programs, click here to donate.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Led by Rigoberto González ("Latino Poetry: Places We Call Home"), Alexis Romay and C.E. Wallace take turns reading their poems aloud in English and Spanish, discussing their meaning in English. Talkback afterwards.
ABOUT THE POETS
Rigoberto González is the editor of "Latino Poetry: Places We Call Home" and the author of four collections of poetry, including “Unpeopled Eden,” which won the Lambda Literary Award and the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. He is a Distinguished Professor of English and the director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers-Newark. González has penned 10 works of prose, including novels, memoir, and bilingual childrens books. He has been awarded Guggenheim and NEA fellowships. Born in Bakersfield and raised by farmworkers who migrated between Mexico and the US, he now lives in New York City.
Alexis Romay is the author of two novels and two books of poetry. He has written lyrics for Paquito D’Rivera and translated over forty picture books, most notably, "I Have a Dream \ Yo tengo un sueño" by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and novels by Ana Veciana-Suarez, Margarita Engle, and Stuart Gibbs into Spanish and translating a novel by Miguel Correa Mujica into English. Among other honors, he has twice won first prize in the International Latino Book Awards for Best Chapter/Young Adult Book Translation - English to Spanish. He is a longtime resident of Montclair.
Clara Elena (C.E.) Wallace is a Paraguayan-born poet and author based in New York. By day, she runs a school for migrant children awaiting reunification with their families in the U.S. Her first book, "Juego de Palabras," is now available in Spain, Mexico, and Colombia from Valparaíso Ediciones. Clara began writing poetry as a teenager, attending the New England Young Writers Conference at Bread Loaf in 2002. She was recently selected to represent Paraguay in The Americas Poetry Festival of New York, which was held on October 11th - 13th, 2023 at the Cervantes Institute of New York and the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association.
ABOUT "Latino Poetry: Places We Call Home"
The book is part of Library of America's multifaceted public humanities initiative in 2024–2025, and will be kept permanently in print.
"For nearly five centuries, the rich tapestry of Latino poetry has been woven from a wealth of languages and cultures—a “tremendous continental mixturao,” in the words of the poet Tato Laviera.
Spanning early accounts of colonial expeditions in the Southwest, visions of the mythical site of Chicano origin, Aztlán, and contemporary expressions of diasporic longing and imagination, the Latino poetic tradition brings dazzling insight to what it means to make a home in America, all the while imparting its own distinct rhythms, lyricism, and candor to American verse.
Recognition of the beauty and power of this tradition has grown in recent years, with Latino poets receiving two national and twelve state Poet Laureateships, a Pulitzer Prize, and three National Book Awards. At the same time the questions confronted by Latino poets—of exile and belonging, language and identity, struggle and solidarity, and labor and landscape—have become ever more urgent.
What does Latino poetry reveal about America? How might it help us imagine a more just, joyful, and capacious future?"—Library of America
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Open Book/Open Mind | Book Discussion | Author Talk |
TAGS: | poetry | non-fiction |
