Seattle Public Library - Central Library issued the following announcement.
Carloyne Wright And Derek Pollard
When: Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022, 6 – 7 p.m.
Where: Online
Address: Registration required
Audience: Adults
Language: English
Summary: Join us for a poetry reading and conversation featuring local author Carolyne Wright discussing "Masquerade" and Florida artist Derek Pollard discussing "On the Verge of Something Bright and Good."
Description: The event is presented in partnership with Elliott Bay Book Company. This event is supported by The Seattle Public Library Foundation and the Gary and Connie Kunis Foundation. Thanks to media sponsor The Seattle Times.
This event will be recorded, captioned and then posted on the Library's YouTube channel after the event. There will be CART transcription for this event.
About the books
Carolyne Wright's new poetry collection, "Masquerade" (Lost Horse Press) is a jazz-inflected, lyric-narrative sequence of poems, a "memoir in poetry" set principally in pre-Katrina New Orleans and in Seattle, involving an interracial couple who are artists and writers. Moved by mutual fascination, shared ideals and aspirations, and the passion they discover in each other, the two are challenged to find a place together in the cultures of both races and families, amidst personal and political dislocations as well as questions of trust—all against the backdrop of America's racism and painful social history. The twentieth century's global problem, the color line, as W. E. B. du Bois named it, is enacted here in microcosm between these lovers and fellow artists, who must face their own fears and unresolved conflicts in each other. Similar stories have been told from the male protagonist's point of view; "Masquerade" is unique in foregrounding the female perspective.
“There are forays in 'On the Verge of Something Bright and Good'—a wigged-out game of Jenga, a relentless riff on 'Denver,' poems of address to James Schuyler, Johnny Weir, and others—that give the speaker free rein, but nothing can 'absolve the absence I made by adoring you.' There’s a beautiful heartbreak in this collection, as well as scenes that will linger, like the Manhattan buildings that 'are still there even though they are gone.'”— Terry Bohnhorst Blackhawk, founder and former Executive Director of the InsideOut Literary Arts Project and author of "One Less River"
About the speakers
The title poem in Carolyne Wright’s book "This Dream the World: New & Selected Poems" (Lost Horse Press, 2017), won a Pushcart Prize and also appeared in The Best American Poetry 2009. Her ground-breaking anthology, "Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace" (Lost Horse, 2015), received ten Pushcart Prize nominations. Carolyne has five earlier books of poetry, a volume of essays, and five award-winning volumes in translation from Spanish and Bengali. A Contributing Editor for the Pushcart Prizes, she teaches for Seattle’s Richard Hugo House and for conferences and festivals worldwide. Carolyne has held Fulbright and other fellowships to Chile, India (Kolkata), and Bangladesh; and she returned to Brazil in 2018 on an Instituto Sacatar artists residency in Bahia. She has also received NEA and 4Culture grants, and a 2020-2021 Fulbright Scholar Award will take her back to Bahia after the Covid-19 pandemic subsides in Brazil.
Derek Pollard is editor of "Till One Day the Sun Shall Shine More Brightly: The Poetry and Prose of Donald Revell" (University of Michigan Press), author of the poetry collection "On the Verge of Something Bright and Good" (Barrow Street Press), and co-author with Derek Henderson of the poetry collection "Inconsequentia" (BlazeVOX Books). He currently serves as Series Editor for the Poets on Poetry Series, founded by Donald Hall and published by the University of Michigan Press, and is the founder of Constellar Creative, where he partners with clients—from leading healthcare networks to internationally renowned scholars—to create and edit content that's so compelling it seems like you, the reader, came up with the ideas on your own.
ADA Accommodations: We can provide accommodations for people with disabilities at Library events. Please contact leap@spl.org at least seven days before the event to request accommodations. Captions are available for all recorded Library programs.
Event Information: For registration information and other questions, Ask Us or 206-386-4636.
Original source can be found here.
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