#ArtLitPhx: Layli Long Soldier and Timothy Yu at the Phoenix Art Museum

Layli Long Soldier and Timothy YuThe University of Arizona Poetry Center is proud to present poets Layli Long Soldier and Timothy Yu at the Phoenix Art Museum (1625 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85004) on Friday, November 3 at 7pm. Both poets will read from their works, and then there will be a short Q&A and a book signing.

The local opener is Bojan Louis, who is a member of the Navajo Nation. His first collection of poems, Currents, published in 2017 from BkMk Press. He is also the author of a nonfiction chapbook, Troubleshooting Silence in Arizona, released by Guillotine Series in 2012. Louis is currently Poetry Editor at RED INK: An International Journal of Indigenous Literature, Arts, and Humanities.

Layli Long Soldier is Oglala Lakota; her family is from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and northwestern Idaho. Her first chapbook of poetry, Chromosomory, released in 2009 from Q Ave Press. She received a BFA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts, and she is a two-time recipient of the Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship. She is also a recipient of the 2009 Naropa University Poetry Scholarship. She has served as editor-in-chief for “Native Language Network” and other publications for the Indigenous Language Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Timothy Yu’s debut poetry collection, 100 Chinese Silences (2016), was the Editor’s Selection in the NOS Book Contest from Les Figues Press. He is also the author of three chapbooks: 15 Chinese Silences (Tinfish); Journey to the West (Barrow Street), winner of the Vincent Chin Memorial Chapbook Prize from Kundiman; and, with Kristy Odelius, Kiss the Stranger (Corollary). He is also the author of Race and the Avant-Garde: Experimental and Asian American Literature since 1965 (Stanford) and the editor of Nests and Strangers: On Asian American Women Poets (Kelsey Street).

For this event, the Poetry Center is proud to partner with the Phoenix Art Museum with support from the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing as a lead sponsor, as well as additional support from the ASU Creative Writing Program, the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry, the Literary & Prologue Society, and Superstition Review.

For more information, check out the event’s Facebook page.

#ArtLitPhx: ASU Stellar Alumni Reading Series feat. Bojan Louis and Irena Praitis

Bojan Louis and Irena Praitis

ASU’s Creative Writing Program is so excited to present its brightest, most talented alumni writers in this new series, the Stellar Alumni Reading Series. In this installment, Irena Praitis (MFA 1999; PhD 2001) and Bojan Louis (MFA 2009) will read from their work.

The reading will take place Thursday, October 26 from 7pm to 8:30pm in the Cochise Room of the Memorial Union on the ASU Tempe campus. A book signing will follow the reading – Bojan Louis is the author of Currents, and Irena Praitis is the author of The Last Stone in the Circle.

In Currents, Louis discusses the kinetic dissonance of the contemporary struggle to coexist with self-inflicted eroding environments. In The Last Stone in the Circle, Praitis chronicles experiences of prisoners in a WWII German work re-education camp based on eye-witness accounts. The synopsis details, “Delving into the murkiness of human experience in the face of suffering, the poems consider the complicated choices people make in impossibly difficult circumstances and explore the sheer resilience of survival.”

This event is free and open to the public. We previously featured this event in our Contributor Updates because Irena Praitis was featured in our very first issue – read her poems in Issue 1 here.

For more information on the event, check out the ASU website and the Facebook page.