Tucson: Poetry reading Borderlands Theater

-----Original Message-----
From: Eva Tessler [mailto:wetborderdog@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 9:18 PM
Subject: Poetry reading Borderlands Theater


BORDERLANDS THEATER
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BORDERLANDS THEATER AND THE PHOENIX ART MUSEUM TO HOST MEXICAN VISITING POET AS PART OF BOOK TOUR CELEBRATING POETRY ANTHOLOGIES," CONNECTING LINES/ LÍNEAS CONECTADAS."

Contact: Eva Tessler, wetborderdog@hotmail.com

August 2007. –  Borderlands Theater and the Phoenix Art Museum are pleased to present Mexican poetVeronica Volkow in a reading on September 17, 2007 at 7:30 pm., at The Loft Cinema, 3233 E Speedway.  The reading is part of a book tour to promote the publication of Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico and Líneas Conectadas: nueva poesía de los Estados Unidos, a two-volume bilingual anthology of contemporary poetry from Mexico and the United States, published by Sarabande Books. Additionally, local poet and translator Wendy Burk will be reading works from other Mexican poets included in the anthology such as Luigi Amara (translated by Burk in the
anthology) and Tedi López Mills (translated by Burke elsewhere). After the reading, anthologies will be available for sale and signing.

Connecting Lines/Líneas Conectadas is the result of a unique partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts, the United States Embassy in Mexico, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Through this endeavor, the partners hope to connect people across borders both geographic and cultural through the vivid language of poetry. The tour has visited Washington, DC, Texas, New Mexico, and California and is managed by Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, a regional arts organization based in Baltimore, Maryland.

National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia said, “Líneas
Conectadas: nueva poesía de los Estados Unidos and its companion volume Connecting Lives: New Poetry from Mexico constitute a unique literary enterprise. These twin anthologies present a diverse cross-section of new poetry from the United States and Mexico in a bilingual format.  Fifty poets from each nation have been selected to display the best work of the postwar generation written in Spanish and English.”


Veronica Volkow was born in 1955 Mexico City, where she still lives.  She is a poet, translator and art critic.  She completed graduate studies in comparative literature a Columbia University.  Her books of poetry include La sibila de Cumas, Litoral de tinta, El inicio, Los cominos and most recently Arcanos.  She is included in the anthology of contemporary Mexican poetry, Reversible Monuments (Cooper Canyon Press 2002) and in Connecting Lines – New Poetry from Mexico (Sarabande 2006). Volkow has translated works by Elizabeth Bishop and John Ashbery, among other poets, into Spanish.

Wendy Burk is the translator of Tedi López Mills’s While Light Is Built and the author of a poetry chapbook, The Deer. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including The Drunken Boat, Colorado Review, and Tin House. Wendy’s poems and translations have also been anthologized in Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico, from Sarabande Books, and the recently released Kore Press audio anthology Autumnal: A Collection of Elegies.  Wendy received an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Arizona, and has twice been named Artist-in-Residence with the National Park Service.

Mexican author, Hernán Lara Zavala who conceived the project with NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, notes, “Culture has the advantage of being inclusive, tolerant, generous, spontaneous, democratic, and vital and perhaps is the best medium to bring together two nations as different as Mexico and the U.S. . . . allowing both countries to be better understood through the fine sensibility and keen perception of poetry.”

American poets in Connecting Lines/Líneas Conectadas include Kay Ryan, Rita Dove, and Sherman Alexie. Featured Mexican poets besides Volkow, Amara and López Mills, include Alfonso D’Aquino, Coral Bracho, and David Huerta. The editors for both volumes are April Lindner and Luis Cortés Bargallo.
more


Additional support for this program: Arizona Commission on the Arts.
Community Partners: U of A Spanish and Portuguese Department, U of A Poetry Center, The Loft Cinema, The Mexican Consulate in Tucson.

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