U Win Pe, artist, writer, director, and cartoonist is profiled in this week’s Teahouse by Khet Mar. Throughout his career, U Win Pe has drawn the connection between art, writing and freedom of expression. He plans to return to Burma after 18 years of exile.
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In this video Thomas Sayers Ellis reads several poems, including “My Meter is Percussive” and “Or”. Recorded in June at the annual Cave Canem reading, co-hosted by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh.
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The poet, teacher and Cave Canem fellow Patricia Smith shares “What Garfield Park Kept Saying” and “An Open Letter to Joseph Peter Naras, Take 2″, two poems from her collection Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah. Smith is a guest poet at City of Asylum’s 2012 Jazz Poetry concert.
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On June 21, Cave Canem, in partnership with City of Asylum/Pittsburgh, presented its annual Pittsburgh reading where National Book Award winning poet Terrance Hayes read, along with poets Angela Jackson, Nikki Giovanni, Nikky Finney, and Thomas Sayers Ellis.
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Independent Chinese PEN Center Tienchi Martin-Liao profiles Tsering Woeser, an internationally renowned Tibetan poet and activist writer who reports on the situation in Tibet. Also commentary on the self-immolated monks whose stories Woeser shares in her blog.
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In this interview National Book Award winner Nikky Finney discusses her journey into poetry, her editing process, why she is frustrated with history’s lion hunters, and the story behind her gripping poem “The Afterbirth, 1931.”
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In this week’s From Egypt column, author Hamdy El-Gazzar writes an open letter to his friend Khalid Khalifa, a Syrian novelist who recently returned to war-torn Syria. Khalifa has issued calls to writers and the international community to “Rescue my people.”
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Guatemalan writer Eduardo Halfon’s forthcoming novel The Polish Boxer is expected in October. Word Without Borders is appealing to readers to help bring Halfon to New York and London for a series of readings geared to high school students. We share a video of Halfon talking about his new novel.
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On June 21, Cave Canem, in partnership with City of Asylum/Pittsburgh, presented a free reading on Pittsburgh’s Monterey Street where poet Angela Jackson read, along with Nikky Finney, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Nikki Giovanni, and Terrance Hayes.
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In this interview, author Lori Jakiela discusses Pittsburgh’s literary community, her writing process, the “particular kind of truth” in memoir, and why her working-class background is important for her career.
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