If you are in Pittsburgh on Labor Day....come celebrate with us!

 

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   Labor Day honors the contributions that workers have made to well-being of the United States. There are celebrations galore that include "Labor Day Poems."   But believe it or not--poets themselves have never been honored for their work. City of Asylum knows that poets are workers. They work long hours on our behalf with little reward... and like Huang Xiang and Khet Mar and  Tuhin Das, they often put their lives on the line for us.  On Labor Day 2019, we are pleased to present the first-ever Labor Day Celebration of Poets with 4 poet laureates from around the U.S.  And, of course, since it's Labor Day, after the reading, there will be light "cookout" food.* Presented in partnership with The Academy of American Poets. **Program is free.  There is a charge for food   Click Here for Free Tickets   The Poet Laureates: 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. Molly Fisk is the 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 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.      Click Here for Free Tickets   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!