Sarah Lawrence College’s 16th Annual Poetry Festival Set for April 26-28

April 8, 2019, Yonkers, NY  – The 16th Annual Sarah Lawrence College Poetry Festival, the largest free, student-run poetry festival in New York State, takes place April 26-28 on the College’s campus.

The festival is open to the public and will include readings by acclaimed poets such as Anne Carson and Jos Charles and Sarah Lawrence undergraduate and graduate students; craft talks; generative sessions; panels; a book fair; high school workshops and more. Also featured will be readings and recordings of poems by incarcerated individuals at the Westchester County Correctional Facility, presented by Suzanne Gardinier and students who have worked with them in the College’s Right-to-Write program.

“No matter what age you are or what your relationship is to poetry, there is something here for you, and we want everyone to be a part of it,” says Jonathan Burkhalter, co-director of the Sarah Lawrence Poetry Festival. “Poetry is one of the most magical things on the planet, and probably one of the most crucial pieces of our culture in America right now for its ability to hold all people in honest and open ways.”

“Poetry is essentially human, ” says Festival co-director Tara Anne Dalbow. “It is inherent and integral to our lived experience.”

Poets who will read from their work include: Hala Alyan, author of the novel Salt Houses and recipient of a Lannan Foundation fellowship; Anne Carson, a professor of classics, a poet, essayist and author of Float, Red Doc, The Albertine Workout among other works; Jos Charles, a trans poet, translator, editor, and author of feeld, a National Book Award long-listed finalist and winner of the 2017 National Poetry Series; Eduardo C. Corral, author of Slow Lightning and Guillotine, and a recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the Holmes National Poetry Prize and the Hodder Fellowship; Safia Elhillo, author of The January Children, Sudanese by way of Washington, DC, and a Cave Canem fellow and 2018 recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship; Suzanne Gardinier, author of 12 books, most recently Amérika, and a Sarah Lawrence College instructor; Jorie Graham, Pulitzer Prize-winning  author of numerous collections of poetry, including From the New World: Poems 1976-2014; Matthea Harvey, author of five books of poetry and instructor at Sarah Lawrence College; Marwa Helal, winner of BOMB Magazine’s Biennial 2016 Poetry Contest and recipient of fellowships from Poets House, Brooklyn Poets, and Cave Canem; Kathleen Hill, author of She Read to us in the Late Afternoons: A Life in Novels among other published works and instructor in the M.F.A. program at Sarah Lawrence College; Ilya Kaminsky, raised in the former Soviet Union, is author of Deaf Republic: Poems and Dancing in Odessa and is the recipient of the Dorset Prize and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Metcalf Award; Aimee Nezhukumatathil, is the author of Miracle Fruit and winner of the ForeWord Magazine Poetry Book of the Year and the Global Filipino Literary Award; Cameron Awkward-Rich, is author of Sympathetic Little Monster, which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award; and R. A. Villanueva, is the author of Reliquaria and winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry.

For the schedule and full biographical information for the featured poets, directions to campus, and other information please visit www.sarahlawrence.edu/poetry-festival.  Registration is requested.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SLCPoetryFestival

Twitter: @slcpofest

Instagram: Slcpoetryfest
Email: slcpoetryfest@gmail.com

About Sarah Lawrence College

Sarah Lawrence College provides a variety of opportunities for members of our local communities to participate in the arts and enjoy the creative work of visiting artists, students and faculty. Visual art exhibitions, open to the public, are presented regularly in the Esther Raushenbush Library Gallery and the Barbara Walters Gallery in the Heimbold Visual Arts Center. Music and dance concerts, theatre productions, poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction readings are presented, some through the Writing Institute on a regular basis throughout the academic year. From time to time the College also offers master classes in dance and music which the public are welcome to attend. For a map of the our campus, visit: http://www.slc.edu/media/campus-map/pdf/VisitorsGuide.pdf