F212.
The Thing with Feathers: Poetry of Witness to Illness, Disability, & Trauma
Friday, March 25, 2022
1:45 pm to 2:45 pm
How might a poet respond to serious illness or disability? Whether the poet is ill or witness to suffering, the harsh, immutable facts of such conditions may generate fear, anger, despair. Sometimes the poet finds strength in a hopeless situation. What in us persists in singing, regardless of how dire the facts? Five published poets discuss work (their own and others’) that grapples with disease or disability and what these poems reveal about hope, what Dickinson called "the thing with feathers."
Participants
Jennifer Franklin (Brown AB, Columbia MFA) is the author of No Small Gift (Four Way Books, 2018) and Looming. Her poetry has been published in the Paris Review, the Nation, and Boston Review and on poets.org. She is coeditor of Slapering Hol Press and teaches at the Hudson Valley Writers' Center.
Oliver de la Paz is the author of five books of poetry. His most recent book is The Boy in the Labyrinth. A founding member of Kundiman, he teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in the low-res MFA program at PLU.
Michelle Whittaker is a Caribbean American poet and author of Surge, awarded a Next Generation Indie Book Award for Poetry. She received a Pushcart Special Mention and NYFA Fellowship in Poetry. She has also served as poetry editor for the Southampton Review and teaches at Stony Brook University.
Brian Komei Dempster's debut book of poems, Topaz, received the 15 Bytes Book Award in Poetry. His second poetry collection, Seize, was Silver Winner of a Human Relations Indie Book Award and a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award, Julie Suk Award, and National Indie Excellence Award in Poetry.
Fred Marchant is the author of five books of poetry, the most recent of which is Said Not Said. He is the editor of Another World Instead: Early Poetry of William Stafford and the founding director of the Suffolk University Poetry Center in Boston. He teaches workshops in venues around the country.
