Special thanks to White Whale Events Manager Anna Claire Weber for hosting and recording this Zoom event.
Note that a link for the entire reading is available at the bottom of this post.
Kristofer Collins is the longtime Books Editor for Pittsburgh Magazine. He is the co-curator of The Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series. His latest book The River Is Another Kind of Prayer: New & Selected Poems was published in 2020 by Kung Fu Treachery Press. His latest project, The Pittsburgh Book Review can be found at https://pittsburghbookreview.blogspot.com/. He lives in Stanton Heights with his wife and son.
Opening Comments by Kristofer Collins - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)Diane Kerr’s second full-length collection, Perigee, won the 2020 Brittingham Prize from the University of Wisconsin Press . Her first book, Butterfly, was published by WordTech Communications in 2014 and her chapbook One by Parallel Press in 2007. Her poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review, Pearl , and Poetry East, among others. She has been awarded fellowships to Ropewalk and Hedgebrook and holds a M.F.A. from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers. Kerr has taught writing at the University of Pittsburgh and mentors in the Madwomen in the Attic creative writing program at Carlow University in Pittsburgh. She recently won first place for her poem, “The Distinguished Thing: A Colloquy,” in Palette Poetry’s 2021 Previously Published Prize. https://www.palettepoetry.com/2021/05/18/winners-and-finalists-of-the-2021-previously-published-prize/
Diane Kerr - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)Malcolm Friend is a poet originally from the Rainier Beach neighborhood of Seattle , Washington . He received his BA from Vanderbilt University , and his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh . He is the author of the chapbook mxd kd mixtape (Glass Poetry, 2017) and the full-length collection Our Bruises Kept Singing Purple (Inlandia Books, 2018), selected by Cynthia Arrieu-King as winner of the 2017 Hillary Gravendyk Prize. Together with JR Mahung he is a member of Black Plantains, an Afrocaribbean poetry collective.
Malcolm Friend - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)Cedric Rudolph first moved to Pittsburgh in 2016 to pursue teaching incarcerated populations under a Words Without Walls fellowship from Chatham University. For two years, he taught at Allegheny County Jail and the now-defunct SCI Pittsburgh. In 2018, he graduated from Chatham with an MFA in Poetry and in Pedagogy. He is currently in his third year of teaching fiction and poetry to middle and high school writers at the Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts school (CAPA). He is one of the founding editors for Beautiful Cadaver, which publishes social justice-themed anthologies. His publications include The Laurel Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Coal Hill Review and The Pittsburgh Neighborhood Guidebook.
Cedric Rudolph - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)Kelli Stevens Kane is a poet, playwright, and oral historian. In describing Hallelujah Science, her debut collection of poetry, author Willie Perdomo says, “Kane’s level of insight, revelation, and economy becomes a spiritual exodus to the lands of being Black, white, a poet, a woman, a shadow, and a human being.” She’s a Cave Canem Fellow who has also studied at VONA, Hurston/Wright, and Callaloo. She’s read, published and performed nationally. For more info: kellistevenskane.com
Kelli Stevens Kane - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
Virgil Suárez was born in Havana and left Cuba with his family when he was just 12. Eventually settling in the United States , he earned a BA from California State University , Long Beach , and an MFA from Louisiana State University and is currently an associate professor of creative writing at Florida State University in Tallahassee . His tenth volume of poetry is THE PAINTED BUNTING’S LAST MOLT ( University of Pittsburgh Press , 2020). In both his poetry and his prose, Suárez seeks to capture the experience of migration. His work has appeared in a multitude of magazines and journals internationally. He has also been taking photographs on the road for the last three decades. When he is not writing, he is out riding his motorcycle up and down the Blue Highways of the Southeast, photographing disappearing urban and rural landscapes.
Virgil Suárez - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)Joan E. Bauer is the author of The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008). For some years, she was a teacher and counselor. In 2007, she won the Earle Birney Poetry Prize from Prism International and in 2018, she was a finalist for the John Ciardi Poetry Prize from BkMk Press. She curates the Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series with Kristofer Collins. Her second full-length book of poetry, The Camera Artist, was published by Turning Point in 2021.
Closing Remarks by Joan E. Bauer - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)The Entire Reading
Start to Finish - Click to Play (Right-Click to Download)
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