The 2011 Spring Semester USpeak Season kicks off on Friday, Jan. 28, with a reading by poet Rita K. Wong and Open Mic session.
Wong is the author of three books of poetry: sybil unrest, co-written with Larissa Lai (Line Books, 2008), forage (Nightwood, 2007), and monkeypuzzle (Press Gang, 1998). She received the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop Emerging Writer Award in 1997 for monkeypuzzle, and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize in 2008 for forage. Wong teaches in Critical and Cultural Studies at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver, BC, Canada. She received a fellowship from the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society to develop a course on contemplating water. Wong is currently researching the poetics of water with the support of a Research/Creation grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (http://www.downstream.ecuad.ca).
Wong’s performance will be preceded by an Open Mic session, during which audience members are invited to share a page of their writing with USpeak’s ever-growing, always appreciative audience.
WHERE: The Oasis Deli in the Whitten University Center.
DATE / TIME: Friday, Jan. 28. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. with light refreshments and cookies provided. The program begins at 6:30, with the featured reading starting at 7:00.
USpeak events are free and open to the public, sponsored, in part, by the University of Miami’s Dept. of English, the Creative Writing Program, and Auxiliary Services.
RESCHEDULING NOTE: The February 25 USpeak has been rescheduled for Friday, MARCH 4: “Movietelling Night: Poets Redub Famous Films.” Please be sure to mark your calendars!
The USpeak series will continue during the spring semester with events on March 11 and April 15. For more information, please visit www.miami.edu/uspeak, where you can also link to Podcasts of previous USpeaks, prepared by our sound engineer, the author/musician/talk show host Matt Gajewski.