Poets on Place: Dilruba Ahmed, Jon Cotner, Farid Matuk, and Sandy Tseng July 21, 2011

Poets on Place: Dilruba Ahmed, Jon Cotner, Farid Matuk, and Sandy Tseng
Thursday, July 21, 2011, 7PM
Throughout history poets have turned their gaze on the world around them and pondered their place in it. They have observed what it means to be a longstanding denizen of a place, or a traveler passing through strange and unfamiliar cities. Tonight four exciting poets—Dilruba Ahmed, Jon Cotner, Farid Matuk and Sandy Tseng—share their unique perspectives on the intimate, joyful, often troublesome relationship between place and identity. Their poems span the globe from the “dusty streets of Kabul” and New York City to little-known neighborhoods in various parts of the world, but more importantly, they shine a light on the lives lived in these places.

Thus, whether taking a Basho-inspired stroll through Manhattan (Cotner), falling in love in Brussels (Ahmed), cruising through Hollywood while ruminating on faraway places like Kabul (Matuk), or negotiating multiple cultures in a time of personal and national crisis (Tseng), these poets illuminate what it means to be simultaneously a global citizen and a rootless wanderer in our modern times.

Dilruba Ahmed’s debut book of poems, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf, 2011), won the 2010 Bakeless Prize for poetry. Ahmed’ s writing has appeared in Blackbird, Cream City Review, New England Review, The Normal School, and Indivisible: Contemporary South Asian American Poetry. A writer with roots in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Bangladesh, Ahmed holds a BPhil in English Writing and an MAT in Instruction and Learning from the University of Pittsburgh. She is a graduate of Warren Wilson College’ s MFA Program for Writers and lives near Philadelphia with her husband and her son.

Jon Cotner is the author, with Andy Fitch, of Ten Walks/Two Talks (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010). It was chosen as a Best Book of 2010 by The Week, The Millions, Time Out Chicago, and Bookslut. His new collaboration with Fitch is called Conversations over Stolen Food. Cotner lives in Brooklyn, and teaches in Pratt Institute’ s Creative Writing Program.

Farid Matuk's This Is a Nice Neighborhood (Letter Machine Editions, 2010) was recently named a finalist for the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award. He is also the author of the chapbooks Is it the King? (Effing, 2006) and Riverside (Longhouse, 2011). New poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 6x6, Esque, Third Coast, and Mandorla. Matuk serves on the editorial team at FENCE and, with the nonprofit WordSpace, helps bring writers to Dallas for readings and talks. He lives in East Dallas with the poet Susan Briante and their daughter.

Sandy Tseng is a New Jersey native, currently living in Denver, Colorado. She is author of Sediment, a collection of poetry published by Four Way Books in October 2009. Her poems have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Crazyhorse, Fugue, Hunger Mountain, The Nation, Third Coast, and other journals. Her poems have been anthologized in Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves (Deep Bowl Press, 2008). Her awards include The Nation's 2006 Discovery Award, the Louis Untermeyer scholarship from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Vira I. Heinz Foundation scholarship, among others. She has held residencies from the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts

@The Asian American Writers' Workshop
110-112 West 27th Street, 6th Floor
Between 6th and 7th Avenues
Buzzer 600

open to the public
$5 suggested donation