LIVE! From City Lights

Erica Hunt and Michael Palmer, reading from their new works: Hunt reading from her new collection "Jump The Clock," published by Nightboat, and Palmer reading from "Little Elegies for Sister Satan," published by New Directions. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete. You can purchase copies of "Jump the Clock" and "Little Elegies for Sister Satan" directly from City Lights here: "Jump the Clock" - https://citylights.com/general-poetry/jump-the-clock-new-sel-poems/ "Little Elegies for Sister Satan" - https://citylights.com/general-poetry/little-elegies-for-sister-satan/ Erica Hunt is a poet and essayist, author of Local History, Arcade, Piece Logic, Veronica: A Suite in X Parts, and Jump the Clock: New and Selected Poems, published by Nightboat Books in November 2020. Her poems and essays have appeared in BOMB, Boundary 2, Brooklyn Rail, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Poetics Journal, Tripwire, Recluse, In the American Tree, and Conjunctions. With Dawn Lundy Martin, Hunt is the editor of an anthology of new writing by Black women, Letters to the Future. Hunt has received awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Art, the Fund for Poetry, and the Djerassi Foundation and is a past fellow of Duke University/University of Capetown Program in Public Policy. She teaches at Brown University. Michael Palmer is an American born in New York City in 1943 and long resident in San Francisco, nearly all of Palmer's poetry is published by New Directions: At Passages (1995); The Lion Bridge: Selected Poems 1972–1995 (1998); The Promises of Glass (2000); Codes Appearing: Poems 1979–1988 (2001); Company of Moths (2005); and most recently, Thread (2011). He is the translator of works by Emmanuel Hocquard, Vicente Huidobro, and Alexei Parshchikov, among others, and the editor of "Code of Signals: Recent Writings in Poetics." For over thirty years he has collaborated with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Mary Beth Meehan with Fred Turner, celebrating the launch of their book "Seeing Silicon Valley: Life Inside a Fraying America" published by University of Chicago Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Seeing Silicon Valley: Life Inside a Fraying America" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/topographies/seeing-silicone-valley/ Mary Beth Meehan is a photographer known for her large-scale, community-based portraiture centered around questions of representation, visibility, and social equity in the United States. She lives in New England, where she has lectured at Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Fred Turner is Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University. He is the author of the books "The Democratic Surround" and "From Counterculture to Cyberculture" both published by the University of Chicago Press. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Carribean Fragoza in conversation with Héctor Tobar, celebrating the launch of her new book "Eat the Mouth That Feeds You", published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete. You can purchase copies of "Eat the Mouth That Feeds You" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/city-lights-published/eat-the-mouth-that-feeds-you/ The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Carribean Fragoza was raised in South El Monte, California. After graduating from UCLA, Fragoza completed the Creative Writing MFA Program at CalArts, where she worked with writers Douglas Kearney and Norman Klein. Fragoza is founder of Vicious Ladies, a new website publishing womxn, queer, and non-binary critics of color. She co-edits UC Press's acclaimed California cultural journal, Boom California, and is also the founder of South El Monte Arts Posse, an interdisciplinary arts collective. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications, including Zyzzyva, Alta, BOMB, Huizache, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is the co-editor of "East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte" and Senior Writer at the Tropics of Meta. Carribean is the Coordinator of the Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Award at Claremont Graduate University, and she lives in the San Gabriel Valley in LA County. Héctor Tobar is the author of five books published in fifteen languages, including the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestseller: "Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free." Héctor is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. He's written for The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times and other publications. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, L.A. Noir, Zyzzyva and Slate. His new novel is "The Last Great Road Bum," published by MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Sesshu Foster and Arturo Ernesto Romo in conversation with Carribean Fragoza, celebrating the book launch of "ELADATL: A History of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete. You can purchase copies of "ELADATL: A History of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/city-lights-published/eladatl-a-hist-of-the-east-la-dirigi/ Sesshu Foster taught composition and literature in East L.A. for over 20 years, and at the University of Iowa, the California Institute for the Arts, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. His work is published in The Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry, Language for a New Century: Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond, and State of the Union: 50 Political Poems. His most recent books are "City of the and "Atomik Aztex." Sesshu was awarded the American Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award in Poetry for "World Ball Notebook;" the Believer Book Award for "Atomik Aztex; an American Book Award for "Invocation LA: Urban Multicultural Poetry;" and finalist for the PEN Center West Poetry Prize, as well as the Paterson Poetry Prize, for "City Terrace Field Manual." Sesshu is based in Alhambra, CA. Arturo Ernesto Romo was born in Los Angeles, California in 1980. His artwork, mostly collaborative mixed media works but also drawing, has been circulated internationally. Fluency, agency and folly are central themes in his practice; he sees his artwork as a companion multiplier, folding folds, netting nets. His art-making is pushed through explorations on the streets of East and North East Los Angeles, which feed into an ongoing series of collaborations with Sesshu Foster. He is based in Alhambra, CA. Carribean Fragoza is the author of Eat the Mouth That Feeds You (City Lights), and founder of Vicious Ladies, a new website publishing womxn, queer, and non-binary critics of color. She co-edits UC Press's acclaimed California cultural journal, Boom California, and is also the founder of South El Monte Arts Posse, an interdisciplinary arts collective. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications, including Zyzzyva, Alta, BOMB, Huizache, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is the co-editor of East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte and Senior Writer at the Tropics of Meta. Carribean is the Coordinator of the Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Award at Claremont Graduate University, and she lives in the San Gabriel Valley in LA County. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Mira Sethi in conversation with Miranda Popkey, celebrating Mira Sethi's new short fiction collection "Are You Enjoying?" published by Alfred Knopf. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Are You Enjoying?" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/staff-picks-archive/are-you-enjoying-stories/ Mira Sethi is an actor and a writer. She grew up in Lahore and attended Wellesley College, after which Sethi worked as a books editor at The Wall Street Journal. She has written op-ed pieces for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian. Sethi regularly appears in a mainstream Pakistani drama series on television. She lives in Lahore, Karachi, and San Francisco. Miranda Popkey is a writer, editor, and translator from the Italian. Her writing has appeared in The New Republic, The New Yorker’s page-turner blog, The Paris Review Daily, The Hairpin, New York’s magazine “The Cut,” and many others. Her debut novel, “Topics of Conversation,” was published by Alfred Knopf in 2020. She currently resides in Massachusetts with her husband and dog. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Marie Mutsuki Mockett in conversation with Garnette Cadogan discussing her new book "American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland," published by Graywolf Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/peoples-history/amer-harvest-god-country/ Marie Mutsuki Mockett is the author of a novel, "Picking Bones from Ash," and a memoir, "Where the Dead Pause," and "The Japanese Say Goodbye," which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award. She has written for the New York Times, Salon, National Geographic, Glamour, Ploughshares, and other publications and has been a guest on The World, Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered on NPR. She is a core faculty member of the Rainier Writing Workshop and a Visiting Writer in the MFA program Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California. She lives in San Francisco. Garnette Cadogan is the Porter Distinguished Visiting Professor for the 2020-2021 academic year. Born and raised in Jamaica, Garnette Cadogan is an essayist, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Rachel Kushner in conversation with Dana Spiotta celebrating the launch of Rachel Kushner's "The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020," published by Scribner. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/hard-crowd-essays-2000-to-2020/ Rachel Kushner is the bestselling author of three novels: the Booker- and NBCC Award–shortlisted "The Mars Room;" "The Flamethrowers," a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times top ten book of 2013; and "Telex from Cuba," a finalist for the National Book Award. She grew up in San Francisco and now lives in Los Angeles. Dana Spiotta is is the author of four novels: "Innocents and Others,"(2016), which won the St. Francis College Literary Prize and was shortlisted for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize; "Stone Arabia" (2011), which was a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist in fiction; "Eat the Document" (2006), which was a National Book Award Finalist in fiction and a recipient of the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; and "Lightning Field" (2001). Spiotta was a Guggenheim Fellow, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow, and she won the 2008-9 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. In 2017, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded her the John Updike Prize in Literature. Spiotta lives in Syracuse and teaches in the Syracuse University MFA program. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Héctor Tobar with Oscar Villalon discussing Héctor Tobar's new book "The Last Great Road Bum," published by Farrar Straus and Giroux. This event was recently broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete. Héctor Tobar is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and novelist. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Deep Down Dark, as well as The Barbarian Nurseries, Translation Nation, and The Tattooed Soldier. Tobar is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. He has written for The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, L.A. Noir, ZYZZYVA, and Slate. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, he is a native of Los Angeles, where he lives with his family. Oscar Villalon is the Managing Editor of Zyzzyva Magazine. He is is the former book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle and a board member of the National Book Critics Circle. His reviews have appeared on NPR.org and KQED's "The California Report."

Joshua Bennett is joined in conversation with Tongo Eisen Martin, Jesse McCarthy, and Simone White to discuss his new book "Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man" published by Belknap Press/Harvard University Press. The prize-winning poet Joshua Bennett argues that blackness acts as the caesura between human and nonhuman, man and animal. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete. Joshua Bennett is the author of The Sobbing School, winner of the National Poetry Series and a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. He has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, and MIT and was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. He is the Mellon Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College. Tongo Eisen-Martin is the author of Heaven Is All Goodbyes (City Lights Books, 2017) and someone's dead already (Boostrap Press, 2015) and his poetry has been featured in Harper's Magazine and New York Times Magazine. Heaven Is All Goobyes was shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize and awarded the California Book Award for Poetry, an American Book Award, and a PEN Oakland Book Award. He is also a movement worker and educator whose work in Rikers Island was featured in the New York Times. He has been a faculty member at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University, and his curriculum on extrajudicial killing of Black people, "We Charge Genocide Again!" has been used as an educational and organizing tool throughout the country. He's from San Francisco. Jesse McCarthy is assistant professor jointly appointed in the Department of English and the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. His research is concerned with the intersection between politics and aesthetics in African American literature, postwar or post-45 literary history, and Black Studies. His dissertation The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War, 1945 – 1965 argues for a reinterpretation of black literary aesthetics in the early Cold War and for the value of a discrete periodization of that era. He is also interested in modernism, film, poetics and translation. While a graduate student at Princeton he founded a Digital Humanities project based on the Sylvia Beach archives held at Princeton's Firestone Library called Mapping Expatriate Paris. His writing on culture, politics, and literature has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Nation, Dissent, The New Republic and n+1. He also serves as an editor at The Point. Simone White is the author of Dear Angel of Death, Of Being Dispersed, and House Envy of All the World and of the poetry chapbooks Unrest and, with Kim Thomas, Dolly. Her writing has appeared in publications including Arttforum, BOMB, e-flux journal, the Chicago Review, and the New York Times Book Review. She teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.

Maw Shein Win with Nathalie Khankan and Marcelo Hernandez Castillo reading from new poetry, Storage Unit for the Spirit House, (Maw Shein Win) and Quiet Orient Riot (Nathalie Khankan), both published Omnidawn. Maw Shein Win is the author of Invisible Gifts: Poems and her chapbooks include Ruins of a Glittering Palace and Score and Bone. Maw is the inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito (2016–18). She lives and teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area. Nathalie Khankan teaches Arabic language and literature in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and she is the founding director of the Danish House in Palestine. Her work has previously appeared in the Berkeley Poetry Review, jubilat, and Crab Creek Review. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and daughters. Marcelo Hernandez Castillo is the author of Cenzontle, winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. prize (BOA editions 2018), winner of the 2019 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award in poetry, a finalist for the Northern California Book Award and named a best book of 2018 by NPR and the New York Public Library. Su Hwang is a recipient of the inaugural Jerome Hill Fellowship in Literature, the Academy of America Poets James Wright Prize, and writer-in-residence fellowships to Dickinson House and Hedgebrook, among others, Her debut poetry collection BODEGA, published with Milkweed Editions, won the 2020 Minnesota Book Awards in poetry. She currently lives in South Minneapolis.