In-Person | Thursday | January 30 | 7-9pm
Carolina Ebeid, Sally Wen Mao, Shane McCrae, and Evie Shockley read from their highly acclaimed books in celebration of the 29th Showcase Exhibition. This event is presented with generous support from the Battery Park City Authority.
Ebeid reads from Dauerwunder: a brief record of facts (Albion Books, 2023), Mao reads from The Kingdom of Surfaces (Graywolf, 2023), McCrae reads from Cain Named the Animal (Macmillan, 2022); and Shockley reads from suddenly we (Wesleyan, 2023).
Readings in Kray Hall with a reception to follow.
By attending or participating in this program, you agree to abide by this Community Agreement. Events at Poets House are popular, and seating is first-come, first-seated. We have several seats reserved for people with access needs. If events reach capacity, seating will be available in an overflow viewing room.
About the poets:
Carolina Ebeid is a multimedia poet. She is the author of You Ask Me to Talk About the Interior (Noemi Press, 2016) and the chapbook Dauerwunder: a brief record of facts (Albion Books, 2023). Her next book Hide is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in winter of 2026. Her work has been supported by the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University, CantoMundo, the NEA, and a residency fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. From 2023-2025 she is the Bonderman Assistant Professor of poetry at Brown University. A longtime editor, she currently edits poetry at The Rumpus, as well as the multimedia zine Visible Binary. Carolina grew up in West New York, New Jersey in a Cuban and Palestinian family.
Sally Wen Mao is the author of the short story collection Ninetails: Nine Tales (Penguin Books, May 2024). She is also the author of three books of poetry: The Kingdom of Surfaces (Graywolf, 2023), a finalist for the Maya Angelou Book Award, Oculus (Graywolf Press, 2019), a finalist for the 2020 Los Angeles Book Prize in Poetry, and Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014). The recipient of an NEA grant, a Cullman fellowship at the New York Public Library, a Shearing fellowship at the Black Mountain Institute, and two Pushcart Prizes, Mao is Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Baruch College.
Shane McCrae’s most recent books of poetry are New and Collected Hell and The Many Hundreds of the Scent. His memoir, Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, was published in 2023. Also in 2023, he was awarded the Arthur Rense Poetry Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and his other awards include a Lannan Literary Award and a Whiting Writer’s Award. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. He lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.
Poet & scholar Evie Shockley thinks, creates, and writes with her eye on a Black feminist horizon. Her books of poetry include suddenly we (NAACP Image Award; National Book Award Finalist), semiautomatic (Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; Pulitzer Prize finalist), and the new black (Hurston/Wright Legacy Award). Among the honors for her body of work are the Shelley Memorial Award, the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Holmes National Poetry Prize, and the Stephen Henderson Award. Her joys include participating in poetry communities such as Cave Canem and collaborating with artists working in various media. Shockley is the Zora Neale Hurston Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University.