Layli Long Soldier will discuss a few poems in her book, WHEREAS, that have provided valuable learning lessons; whereby, certain “mistakes” have helped build new approaches and have changed the course of her practice. This lecture will be, primarily, an artist talk and sharing of experience, with hopes to inspire an embrace of seeming “failures,” to strengthen the practice of compassion for oneself, and to honor the space needed for growth. The lecture will be followed by a Q&A. Together, we will pursue our limitations as muscles for moving the poem.
Layli Long Soldier holds a B.F.A. from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an M.F.A. from Bard College. Her poems have appeared in POETRY Magazine, The New York Times, The American Poet, The American Reader, The Kenyon Review Online, BOMB and elsewhere. She is the recipient of an NACF National Artist Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a Whiting Award, and was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award. She has also received the 2018 PEN/Jean Stein Award and the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the author of Chromosomory (Q Avenue Press, 2010) and WHEREAS (Graywolf Press, 2017). She resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
We encourage enthusiastic readers and listeners to engage more deeply with Layli Long Soldier's work by purchasing her book, WHEREAS.