T224.
A Tribute to Monica A. Hand: Poet, Playwright, Translator, Mentor, Activist
Thursday, March 24, 2022
3:20 pm to 4:35 pm
Monica A. Hand (1953–2016) was a brilliant poet, playwright, book artist, translator, Cave Canem Fellow, mentor, and activist. Her poetry books, me and Nina (2012), winner of the 2010 Kinereth Gensler Award, and The DiVida Poems (A2018), reveal a profound, major voice for the experiences of African Americans, women, and artists and for peace and social justice. Panelists will talk about her, read her poems, and show images of one of our most beloved poets whose loss is felt all over the world.
Participants
Aliki Barnstone is a poet, translator, critic, editor, and artist. Some of her recent books of poems are Dwelling, Bright Body, Dear God, Dear Dr. Heartbreak, and a translation of Cavafy. Among her awards are a Fulbright Fellowship in Greece and residencies at VCCA. She is poet laureate of Missouri.
Cornelius Eady is the author of eight poetry collections, including Victims of the Latest Dance Craze, winner of the 1985 Lamont Prize, and Brutal Imagination. Cofounder of Cave Canem, he holds the Miller Chair at the University of Missouri.
Rebecca Pelky is an assistant professor of film studies at Clarkson University. She has two collections of poetry, Horizon of the Dog Woman and Through A Red Place. She is a member of the Brothertown Indian Nation of Wisconsin and writes in Mohegan and English.
Liana Sakelliou is a poet, translator, critic, editor, and professor at the University of Athens, Greece and a member of the Hellenic Authors' Society. She is the author of eighteen books and wrote monographs on Emerson, Dickinson, H.D., Levertov, Snyder. Her poems have been widely anthologized and translated into several languages.
Lauren K. Alleyne is author of Difficult Fruit (2014) and Honeyfish (2019) and coeditor of Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry (2020). Assistant director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center, she is professor of English at James Madison University.
