April 20– This summer, the Academy of American Poets is once again partnering with Bryant Park, in New York City, to present an outdoor reading series of emerging poets. Last year, amidst the wind, shade trees, and passing sirens, these monthly readings welcomed crowds of over a hundred each time.
Running from May through September, the readings will be held on the second Tuesday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in the park’s open-air library, the Bryant Park Reading Room. Provided free to the public, this year’s line-up features a broad range of styles, personalities, and backgrounds, with poets from New York City’s tri-state area as well as far-flung parts of North America, including the South, the West Coast, and Canada.
Series Schedule
Tuesday, May 9
6:30 p.m.
Sarah Gambito, Ted Mathys, and Srikanth Reddy
Tuesday, June 13
6:30 p.m.
Eric Gamalinda, Ross Gay, Patrick Rosal, and Matthew Shenoda
Tuesday, July 11
6:30 p.m.
Mark Bibbins, Thomas Heise, Tyehimba Jess, and Joyelle McSweeney
Tuesday, August 8
6:30 p.m.
Peter Covino, Thomas Sayers Ellis, and Ada Limón
Tuesday, September 12
6:30 p.m.
Jeffrey McDaniel, Eugene Ostashevsky, and Monica Youn
Poet Biographies
Mark Bibbins teaches in the graduate writing program at The New School and has been a New York Foundation for the Arts fellow. His first book of poems, Sky Lounge (Graywolf Press, 2003), received a Lambda Literary Award.
Peter Covino is the author of Cut Off the Ears of Winter (Western Michigan University/New Issues Press, 2005) a finalist for the Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award. His chapbook, Straight Boyfriend, received the Frank O'Hara Prize in Poetry in 2001. He just received his Ph.D. in English/Creative Writing from the University of Utah and will join the faculty of English at the University of Rhode Island this fall. His poems have been widely published and anthologized. He is currently working on a translation project of Italian poets for an anthology on Contemporary European Poetry, to be published by Graywolf Press in 2007.
Thomas Sayers Ellis is the author of a chapbook, The Genuine Negro Hero, (Graywolf 2005), and a chaplet, Song On (WinteRed Press 2005). His first book of poetry, The Maverick Room, was published by Graywolf Press in 2005. His Quotes Community: Notes for Black Poets is forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press (Poets on Poetry Series). He is an associate professor of English at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and a faculty member of The Lesley University low-residency M.F.A program in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Eric Gamalinda is the author of Zero Gravity, winner of the Asian American Literary Award in 2000. He is also a fiction writer and video artist, and has received a fiction fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Philippine Centennial Award for My Sad Republic, a novel about the little-known Philippine-American War, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines Independent Film and Video award for two experimental films. A new collection of poems, Amigo Warfare, is forthcoming in 2007.
Sarah Gambito is the author of Matadora (Alice James, 2004). Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Iowa Review, The Antioch Review, Denver Quarterly, The New Republic, Field, Quarterly West, Fence and other journals. She holds degrees from the University of Virginia and the creative writing program at Brown University. She is co-founder of Kundiman, a nonprofit organization serving emerging Asian American poets. She lives in New York City.
Ross Gay is the author of Against Which, forthcoming from CavanKerry Press in fall 2007. His poems have been published in American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, North American Review, Sulfur, and Margie, among several others. He is a Cave Canem fellow, a Breadloaf Tuition Scholar, a basketball coach, and an occasional demolition man.
Thomas Heise holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis, and a Ph.D. in English Literature from New York University. He is the author of Horror Vacui: Poems (Sarabande, 2006) and has published poetry and essays in Verse, Gulf Coast, Slope, Ploughshares, Conduit, Forklift Ohio, The Journal, Washington Square, Modern Fiction Studies, and elsewhere. His poetry also has been anthologized in Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century. He is the former curator of Reading Between A and B in New York City. Currently, he is an assistant professor of English at McGill University, in Montréal, Canada.
Tyehimba Jess’s first book of poetry, leadbelly (Verse Press, 2005), is a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. His fiction and poetry have been widely published and anthologized. He has received awards and fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council, the Chicago Sun-Times, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. He is a member of the creative writing faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Ada Limón is originally from Sonoma, California. A graduate of the creative writing program at New York University, she has received fellowships from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and won the Chicago Literary Award for Poetry. Her first book, lucky wreck,was the winner of the 2005 Autumn House Poetry Prize and her second book, This Big Fake World, was the winner of the 2005 Pearl Poetry Prize.
Ted Mathys is the author of Forge (Coffee House Press, 2005). A 2005 National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellow, his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various literary journals and magazines, including American Poetry Review, Chelsea, Colorado Review, Fence, jubilat, Ploughshares, Verse, and Web Conjunctions. Originally from Ohio, he lives in New York and works at the American Council on Germany.
Jeffrey McDaniel is the author of Alibi School, The Forgiveness Parade, and most recently The Splinter Factory, all published by Manic D Press. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the D.C. Council for the Arts, his work has appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, and New (American) Poets. A translated book of poems is forthcoming in Germany from Lautsprecher Press. He is a professor of creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College.
Joyelle McSweeney is the author of The Red Bird and The Commandrineand Other Poems, both from Fence. She is the co-founder and co-editor of Action Books, a press for poetry and translation, and the web quarterly Action, Yes, a journal for international writing and hybrid forms. She writes regular reviews for The Constant Critic, Rain Taxi, and other venues and will be joining the creative writing faculty at Notre Dame this fall.
Eugene Ostashevsky's books of poetry include Iterature and Infinite Recursor Or The Bride of DJ Spinoza, both available through Ugly Duckling Presse. His work has also appeared in Best American Poetry, Jubilat, Boston Review, and Fence. A recipient of a 2005 poetry fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, he also translates Russian absurdist literature of the 1930s, and is the editor of OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism, published by Northwestern University Press.
Srikanth Reddy's first collection of poetry, Facts for Visitors (University of California Press, 2004) received the Asian American Literary Award for poetry in 2005. His work has appeared in various publications, including American Poetry Review, Fence, Grand Street, jubilat, Ploughshares, and Verse. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and doctoral candidate at Harvard University, Reddy is currently an assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago.
Patrick Rosal’s first book, Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive (Persea Books), won the Asian American Writers Workshop Members Choice award. His second collection, My American Kundiman, is due out Fall 2006. His work has appeared in North American Review, The Literary Review, Brevity, and The Beacon Best 2001. He is currently assistant professor of English at Bloomfield College.
Matthew Shenoda is a Coptic poet, educator, and activist. His first collection of poems, Somewhere Else, was published by Coffee House Press, and his poems and writings have been published widely. A regular contributor to Voices of the Middle East and North Africa on KPFA Pacifica radio, Shenoda is a faculty member in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. He is a recent recipient of a California Arts Council Grant and a Lannan Literary Residency. He is currently is at work on a second collection, Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone, and lives in South Berkeley, California.
Monica Youn's first book, Barter, was published by Graywolf Press in 2003. She was raised in Houston, Texas, and attended Princeton, Oxford, and Yale Law School. She lives in Manhattan, where she is an entertainment lawyer. She is currently working on her second book, titled Ignatz, based on George Herriman's classic comic strip Krazy Kat.
The Bryant Park Reading Room is a project of the Bryant Park Restoration Project. The Reading Room is located in Bryant Park at 42nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan.
For more information on programs and membership, contact us:
The Academy of American Poets
584 Broadway, Suite 604
New York, NY 10012
tel (212) 274-0343
fax (212) 274-9427