THE WORK TO BE DONE: POETRY & SOCIAL JUSTICE
with special guest moderator WNYC's BRIAN LEHRER
Friday, October 21st 6:30 - 9:30PM
NJPAC's Prudential Hall
Purchase Tickets
Taking its title from the closing words of Gwendolyn Brooks’ “to the Diaspora,” with its reminder of the work that remains “to be done to be done to be done,” this special event includes a discussion with Martín Espada, U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, Katha Pollitt, Claudia Rankine and special guest moderator WNYC’s Brian Lehrer. The many ways these poets and writers have engaged with their times—as political columnists and essayists, tenant rights lawyers, advocates and activists—will be among the topics explored in conversation and in a Q & A with the audience. The Work To Be Done will be followed by main stage readings by Espada, Pollitt and Rankine.
BIOS
Brian Lehrer is host of "The Brian Lehrer Show," WNYC Radio's daily call-in program, covering politics and life, locally and globally. The show airs weekdays from 10 a.m.-noon on WNYC 93.9 FM, AM 820 and wnyc.org. "The Brian Lehrer Show" was recognized with a 2007 George Foster Peabody Award for "Radio That Builds Community Rather Than Divides."
The New York Times called Lehrer a “master interviewer.” Time has called the program "New York City's most thoughtful and informative talk show." The Daily News calls it "cutting edge" for its extreme interactivity and creative use of the internet. Guests range from politicians such as Barack Obama, Chris Christie, Michael Bloomberg, John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Cory Booker, to cultural figures such as Werner Herzog, Penn Jillette, David Lynch, DJ Spooky and Margaret Atwood, to astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, to New York City middle school students.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, MARTÍN ESPADA is the author of more than fifteen books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator. His collection The Republic of Poetry (2006) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The title poem of his collection Alabanza, about 9/11, has been widely anthologized and performed. His book of essays, Zapata’s Disciple (1998), was banned in Tucson as part of the Mexican-American Studies Program outlawed by the state of Arizona. A graduate of Northeastern University Law School and a former tenant lawyer in the Greater Boston’s Latino community, Espada is currently a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA was born in California. The son of migrant farmers, he moved often, living in trailers or tents along the roads of the San Joaquin Valley. Herrera was one of the first Chicanos to receive an Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) scholarship to attend UCLA. His work, which includes video, photography, theater, poetry, prose, and performance, has made Herrera a leading voice on the Mexican American and indigenous experience. In 2015, Herrera was named U.S. Poet Laureate and launched the project La Casa de Colores, inviting citizens to contribute to an epic poem. He is the father of five children, and lives in Fresno, California, with his partner, Margarita Robles.
KATHA POLLITT is the author of two poetry collections, The Mind-Body Problem (2009) and Antarctic Traveler (1989). Her “Subject to Debate” column, which debuted in 1995, appears every other week in The Nation. In 2003, “Subject to Debate” won the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary. Pollitt has written essays and book reviews for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the New York Times, and more. She has appeared on NPR’s Fresh Air and All Things Considered, CNN, and the BBC. For her poetry, Pollitt has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Born in New York City, she was educated at Harvard and the Columbia School of the Arts. She has taught poetry at Princeton and Barnard, and women’s studies at the New School University.
A 2016 MacArthur Fellow, CLAUDIA RANKINE was born in Jamaica, earned her BA in English from Williams College and her MFA in poetry from Columbia University. She is the author of five collections of poetry, including the New York Times best seller Citizen: An American Lyric (2014), which received many awards and was included in many Best of 2015 book lists, including The Atlantic’s and The Guardian’s. Rankine has edited anthologies, published plays and produced a number of videos in collaboration with John Lucas. Her honors include the Jackson Poetry Prize, as well as fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the National Endowments for the Arts. She is currently the Aerol Arnold Chair of English at the University of Southern California.
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