Present Self: Tina Chang, Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan, and Monica Youn November 4, 2011

Four Way Books teams up with the Workshop to present an all-star poetry line-up featuring Brooklyn Poet Laureate Tina Chang, National Book Award finalist Monica Youn, and award-winning author Claire Kageyama- Ramakrishnan. In Ignatz, Monica Youn tackles George Harriman's legendary Krazy Kat comic to extract Ignatz the mouse and expand upon his role as the defiant object of Krazy's pursuit. What emerges is both sharp and sad -- a collection of the ways desire shapes the beloved and makes him unearthly. Tina Chang will read from her new book of poems, Of Gods & Strangers, which poet Tracy K. Smith calls a "large-scale epic, sifting through the embers and emblems of outlived eras, and carrying what it finds back toward the future." The evening will close with a reading by Claire Kageyama- Ramakrishnan debuting her second, highly-anticipated work Bear, Diamonds and Crane in which she recounts, in a voice Blas Falconer calls "familiar and fresh, heartbreaking [...] and humorous," the legacy of Manzanar and the struggle of individuals measuring their place in history. Join us as we sift through what constitutes present identities, with wine (it helps).