Celebrate with us this Labor Day!

 

Poet Laureate Celebration with the Academy of American Poets    Monday, September 2 3 p.m. City of Asylum @ Alphabet City 40 W. North Avenue FREE! Click Here for Free Tickets   This Labor Day, City of Asylum will host a celebration of poetry with four nationally recognized Poet Laureates. Each poet is a 2018-19 fellow with the Academy of American Poets, and will read from their work and talk about the important role poet laureates play to change their communities.  To ring in the holiday, a taco truck will be on-site selling food and merriment.  The Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellowships are financial awards that recognize literary excellence and promote creative projects around the country. Only thirteen American poets received fellowships in 2018-19 and four of them will be together on the Alphabet City stage.    Click Here for Free Tickets   Molly Fisk is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Nevada County, CA. She is currently leading a statewide project to help children write about wildfires, flooding, and other climate-related disasters. She's the author of The More Difficult Beauty, Listening to Winter, and four books of radio commentary, and has received grants from the NEA, the California Arts Council, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.    Paisley Rekdal is the Poet Laureate of Utah. She is the author of the book of essays, The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee and five books of poetry. Her collection, Animal Eye, was a finalist for the 2013 Kingsley Tufts Prize, the Balcones Prize and winner of the UNT Rilke Prize. Her latest nonfiction work, The Broken Country, won the 2016 AWP Nonfiction Prize. Paisley has been included in multiple editions of The Best American Poetry series.    Raquel Salas Rivera es la Poeta Laureada de la ciudad de Filadelfia. Fue la recipiente inaugural del Premio Ambroggio y la Beca de Laureada, ambos de la Academia de Poetas Americanos.  Del 2016-2018 sirvió de editora para la revista literaria una colección bilingüe de volantes de poetas puertorriqueños contemporáneos. Cuenta con la publicación de seis plaquetas y cinco poemarios.  Raquel ama y vive por Puerto Rico, Filadelfia y un mundo libre de la supremacía blanca. Raquel Salas Rivera is the Poet Laureate of Philadelphia. They are the inaugural recipient of the Ambroggio Prize and the Laureate Fellowship, both from the Academy of American Poets. From 2016-2018, they edited a collection of bilingual broadsides of contemporary Puerto Rican poets. They are also the author of six chapbooks and five full-length poetry books. Raquel loves and lives for Puerto Rico, Philadelphia, and a world free of white supremacy.   Kim Shuck is the Poet Laureate of San Francisco. She is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. She has an MFA in textiles, has provided cover art for multiple books of poetry, and her beadwork is danced from North Carolina to Burbank during the pow wow season. Kim's writing has earned a number of awards one of which, the then Diane Decorah award, led to her first solo book of poems Smuggling Cherokee.  Her most recent collection of poems is Murdered Missing.    At City of Asylum, we want our events to be welcoming and accessible to all people.  All floors of Alphabet City are wheelchair accessible.  Thanks to the generous support of RAD, we also have hearing assistive systems available for all programs, by advance request.  If you have questions or are in need of accommodations, please contact us.    Click here to contact us about accessibility accommodations   Visit AlphabetCity.org for our full line-up of FREE events!