In a recent preface to the feminist touchstone anthology, This Bridge Called My Back, Cherríe Moraga asks, “What might it mean, to wait actively, to begin to listen attentively to the so-called ‘nobodies’ of the world, the unnoticed in Anzaldúa’s “Mundo Zurdo,” to those brothers trapped in 115-degree heat waves in Washington State prisons, to teachers with the gift of tongues in revolt that might send us marching into an engaged life of critical consciousness?” The Poetry Project is honored to welcome Moraga to continue her exploration of the radically transformative potential of attentive listening on a path towards a world where nobody is nobody.
A live stream of this event can be accessed here. Edited recordings will be shared after the event. Tickets will be available on 5/12.
Cherríe Moraga is an internationally recognized poet, essayist and playwright whose professional life began in 1981 with her co-editorship of the groundbreaking feminist anthology, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. The author of several collections of her own writings, including: A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness, Loving in The War Years, and Waiting in the Wings: Portrait of a Queer Motherhood, Moraga is the recipient of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship for Literature and the American Studies Association Lifetime Achievement Award, among numerous other honors. As a dramatist, her awards include an NEA, two Fund for New American Plays Awards, and the PEN West Award. In 2017, Moraga’s most recent play, The Mathematics of Love, premiered at Brava Theater Center in San Francisco. In the fall of 2017, she began her tenure as a Professor in the Department of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where with her artistic partner, Celia Herrera Rodriguez, she has instituted Las Maestras Center: Xicana[x] Indigenous Thought, Art, and Social Praxis. Her most recent work, Native Country of the Heart, a memoir, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
This is tentatively planned as a live indoor event at St. Mark's Church. We are following guidelines laid out by the CDC and the State of New York. These include: limiting the number of attendees to 50% capacity; requiring proof of vaccination be shown at the door upon arrival; and requiring and providing face masks, as well as hand sanitizer stations. Before each event, we will also be conducting rapid tests for all performers and event staff. Attendees are required to register in advance, and contact information is collected at the point of registration in the event that we need to support any public health efforts around contact tracing. We are committed to the safety of our performers, audience, and event staff, and will be fully prepared to update any of these plans and protocols as circumstances continue to evolve. We are grateful to attendees for helping us maintain safety within our present public health context, and look forward to holding meaningful shared listening space together.
Please arrive prepared to show proof of vaccination and a photo ID at the door. Proof of vaccination may be in the form of your vaccination card (or a picture of your card), the NYC Covid Safe app, or the Excelsior app. If, for medical reasons, you have not been vaccinated, you may instead bring documentation of a negative PCR test taken within the last 72 hours.