Poets Martin Espada & Dennis Bernstein: A Zoom Event: Floaters

Tue, Jan 19, 6-7:30pm Pacific time

KPFA Radio 94.1 FM presents:

Poets Martin Espada & Dennis Bernstein: A Zoom Event
Floaters

MARTIN ESPADA, a poet who stirs our social consciousness, has published twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator, including Vivas To Those Who Have Failed and Pulitzer Prize finalist The Republic of Poetry.

His latest book, Floaters, offers exuberant odes and defiant elegies, songs of protest and songs of love. The title is a term used by some Border Patrol agents to describe migrants who drown trying to cross over the border. Espada bears eloquent witness to confrontations with anti-immigrant bigotry. He also knows that times of hate call for poems of love. Whether celebrating the visionaries - the fallen dreamers, rebels, and poets - or condemning the outrageous governmental neglect of his father's Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, Espada invokes ferocious, incandescent spirits.

DENNIS BERNSTEIN , a poet and investigative journalist, is the producer of Flashpoints (heard weekdays at 5pm on KPFA Radio 94.1 FM. His political essays have appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines and websites. His latest book of poems is Five Oceans in a Teaspoon, with typographic visualizations by Warren Lehrer. The poems in it reflect the struggle of everyday people trying to survive in the face of adversity. It spans a single lifetime: from growing up confused by dyslexia to becoming a frontline witness to war and its aftermath, to prison, street life, poverty, love and loss, to open heart surgery. Five Oceans in a Teaspoon speaks to the madness, vulnerability, aspiration and language of our time. The raw emotion of the writing has a freshness rarely encountered. The book was a winner for Poetry in the 2020 Best Book Awards/American Book Fest, and a finalist in the International Book award for Poetry.

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