Tuesday, March 9th, 2021, 7pm Eastern. Online only, via Zoom. Registration required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/136832578927/
Did you miss this event? Not to worry, we recorded it!: https://youtu.be/GWSlRz5TtRo
Join Gibson's Bookstore for a virtual night of verse as poet Arisa White presents her new collection, Who's Your Daddy; A lyrical, genre-bending coming-of-age tale featuring a queer, Black, Guyanese American woman who, while seeking to define her own place in the world, negotiates an estranged relationship with her father. She is joined in reading by poet Dara Wier, whose next collection of poems, Tolstoy Killed Anna Karenina, is due out from Wave Books in 2021.
About the authors:
ARISA WHITE is a Cave Canem fellow, Sarah Lawrence College alumna, an MFA graduate from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and author of the poetry chapbooks Disposition for Shininess, Post Pardon, Black Pearl, Perfect on Accident, and “Fish Walking” & Other Bedtime Stories for My Wife won the inaugural Per Diem Poetry Prize. Published by Virtual Artists Collective, her debut full-length collection, Hurrah’s Nest, was a finalist for the 2013 Wheatley Book Awards, 82nd California Book Awards, and nominated for a 44th NAACP Image Awards. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in 2005, 2014, 2016, 2018, and 2019, her poetry has been published widely and is featured on the recording WORD with the Jessica Jones Quartet.
DARA WIER's forthcoming book is a collection of poems, TOLSTOY KILLED ANNA KARENINA, from Wave Books; recent books are in the still of the night and YOU GOOD THING, also from Wave. She lives and works in North Amherst, Massachusetts. Lannan and Guggenheim foundations have supported her writing as well as National Endowment for the Arts and Massachusetts Cultural Council.
A lyrical, genre-bending coming-of-age tale featuring a queer, Black, Guyanese American woman who, while seeking to define her own place in the world, negotiates an estranged relationship with her father.
Poetry. LGBTQIA Studies. California Interest. African & African American Studies. Women's Studies. Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Lesbian Poetry.
Winner of the Nautilus Book Award
Winner of the 2021 FOCAL Award
Silver Award Winner, 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards
Winner of the Book Award for Young People's Literature, 2020 Maine Literary Awards
A Great Kid Books Best New Book
Likely available, but must be ordered by email/phone
A vivid and varied collection that addresses family loyalties, dysfunction, violence, and differences, Hurrah's Nest is White's imaginative and emotionally honest exploration of growing up the second oldest, first daughter of seven siblings.
Love is alive in White's eight poems and poetic drama that call on the feminine presence, through ancestral memory and legacy, to heal a broken heart.
Arisa White] is a fierceless and tender poet who always brings into view what's strange and unusual and critical for our survival. Her poems consider what it requires to meditate and meet what's unknown without flinching.--Dara Wier
Poetry. African American Studies. LGBT Studies. Based on a true story. In her second full-length collection, A PENNY SAVED, Arisa White's elegantly harrowing poems investigate the idea of the captive within spousal abuse.
Praise for Dara Wier's previous work:
"Wier's poems explode with variety, particularity, whirlwinds of detail and mystery . . . memoirs, dialogues, choral performances witnessing scenes both weird and familiar."--Rain Taxi