Last September, Alicia Ostriker performed in City of Asylum’s Jazz and Poetry Festival. Ostriker’s performance was at once graceful and snappy. Reading alongside the evening’s jazz band, her words plucked at the heartstrings of the […]

This past September, Tarfia Faizullah flew in from Chicago to join City of Asylum as they wrapped up their 15th annual Jazz Poetry Month. Prior to her performance, Faizullah sat down in the Alphabet City green […]

After their rehearsal for their City of Asylum reading, Roy Guzmán was kind enough to sit down and chat  about poetry, language, and what words mean in times of strife. Guzmán is a Honduran-born, Miami-raised poet […]

Our bodies and minds can be understood as containers, or vessels. They’re storing things, they’re storing memories, or they may be actively trying to forget certain things, withdraw certain items. So when we enter rooms, when we enter spaces, what are the things that we are carrying? What are the things we are always holding and bringing with us?

Osama Alomar settles into his home in Pittsburgh’s North Side and opens up Skype. In Quebec, Canada, more than 750 miles away, C.J. Collins sits at his desk, pulls a set of headphones over his ears, […]