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In
collaboration with the Department of English, the Institute’s
annual conference was a major Latino literary event. “Ariel’s
Wake: Poetry, Diasporas, and American Literature,” April
22-23, included multicultural poetry readings, book signings,
and a scholarly forum on the present and future of American identity
and the American literary canon. The conference and poetry festival
featured a multicultural panel of award-winning poets, writers,
and scholars such as Marge Piercy, Marilyn Chin, Lisa Sanchez
Gonzales,
Veronica Makowsky, Doug Anderson, Martin Espada, Julio Marzan,
and Khaled Mattawa among others. Book readings and roundtable
discussions were followed with a book signing reception.
 These
year’s
conference posed crucial questions to scholars, poets, and the
audience: Have geopolitical changes of the past
century made Ariel, an allegory for post colonial intellectual
circles, an obsolete trope, or not?; Does Ariel still suffice
as an allegory for the political contexts and subtexts of 21st
century
American poetics?; finally, what is the relevance of contemporary
American poetry to colonialism, imperialism, and human rights?
The invited guests, representing, a range of diasporan communities,
manifested Ariel’s Wake in their readings and explored
common legacies as multicultural writers in the craft of portraying
their
distinct cultural legacies.
The distinguished poets who read from
and discussed their work were:
Martín Espada (Alabanza:
New And Selected Poems; A Mayan Astronomer In Hell's Kitchen)
Julio Marzán (Puerta De Tierra; Translations Without Originals:
Poems)
Marge Piercy (Colors Passing Through Us; Poems With A Jewish
Theme; Sleeping With Cats)
Marilyn Chin (Rhapsody In Plain Yellow; The Phoenix Gone, The
Terrace Empty)
Khaled Mattawa (Zodiac Of Echoes; Isma'ilia Eclipse)
Roundtable
scholars:
Roberto Márquez (Latin American Revolutionary
Poetry; Patria O Muerte: The Great Zoo And Other Poems);
Robert Tilton (George Washington: The Man Behind the Myths; Pocahontas:
The Evolution of an American Narrative);
Veronica Makowsky (Susan Glaspell's Century of American Women;
Caroline Gordon: A Biography);
Jerry Philips;
Doug Anderson (The Moon Reflected Fire; Blues For Unemployed
Secret Police); and
Lisa Sánchez González (Boricua Literature: A Literary
History of the Puerto Rican Diaspora). |
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2005 Annual Conference: Latinos and Sexuality |
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