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The Asian American and African American communities gather for a night of brilliant poetry and music. The night will include readings by Elizabeth Alexander, Justin Chin, Kimiko Hahn, Linda Susan Jackson, Gregory Pardlo, Vijay Seshadri and the musical stylings of Patrick Rosal in collaboration with Aracelis Girmay. This event is curated by Tina Chang and Tracy K. Smith.

$5 donation is suggested.

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Elizabeth Alexander‘s collections of poetry include Antebellum Dream Book (Graywolf Press, 2001), Body of Life (1996), and The Venus Hottentot (1990). Her poems, short stories, and critical writing have been widely published in such journals and periodicals as The Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, Callaloo, The Village Voice, The Women’s Review of Books, and The Washington Post, and her work is anthologized in over twenty collections. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Chicago, and the George Kent Award, given by Gwendolyn Brooks.

Justin Chin is the author of Harmless Medicine and Bite Hard, and three collections of essays, Burden of Ashes, Attack of the Man-eating Lotus Blossoms, and Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes and Pranks. His newest collection is Gutted (Manic D Press).

Kimiko Hahn‘s seven books of poems include The Unbearable Heart, which received an American Book Award, and most recently, The Narrow Road to the Interior. In this new volume, she collects work inspired by the Japanese forms, tanka and zuihitsu; the title, itself, comes from Basho’s famous poetic journal, Okunohosomichi. She is a Distinguished Professor in the MFA program at Queens College, The City University of New York.

Linda Susan Jackson‘s first collection of poems, What Yellow Sounds Like, was a finalist in the 2006 National Poetry Series Competition and will be published by Tia Chucha Press in Spring 2007. She has published two chapbooks, Vitelline Blues and A History of Beauty. Her work has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Brilliant Corners, Asheville Poetry Review, Gathering Ground, Heliotrope, Los Angeles Review, Rivendell, Warpland, and Brooklyn Review 21 among other journals and has been featured on From the Fishouse audio archive. She is an Assistant Professor and Deputy Chair of the English Department at Medgar Evers College/City University of New York and a Cave Canem graduate fellow.

Gregory Pardlo is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in poetry and a translation grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. His poems, reviews and translations have appeared in Calalloo, Lyric, Painted Bride Quarterly, Ploughshares, Seneca Review, Volt, Black Issues Book Review and on National Public Radio. He teaches creative writing at Medgar Evers College, CUNY, and lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant with his wife and daughter. His manuscript, Totem, was chosen by Brenda Hillman for the American Poetry Review/ Honickman First Book Prize and will be published Sept. 2007.

Vijay Seshadri‘s collections of poems include James Laughlin Award winner The Long Meadow (Graywolf Press, 2004) and Wild Kingdom (1996). He currently teaches poetry and nonfiction writing at Sarah Lawrence College.

Patrick Rosal is the author of two full length-collections of poetry, My American Kundiman and Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive. The closest he got to conservatory was secretly struggling with first species counterpoint during the graveyard shift of his second job at 19. He once jammed with Max Roach and was terrible.

Aracelis Girmay writes poetry, fiction, & essays. Originally from Santa Ana, California, she earned degrees from Connecticut College & NYU. Girmay is a Cave Canem Fellow & former Watson Fellow. Her poems have been published in Callaloo, Bellevue Literary Review, Indiana Review, and Ploughshares, among others. Her book of poems, Teeth, will be published by Curbstone Press this summer.