The Wily Filipino

Two Pinay Poets: Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Barbara Jane Reyes

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Berkeley, CA - Celebrate Filipino American History Month with Two Pinay Poets: Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Barbara Jane Reyes, who will read from their debut poetry collections, Miracle Fruit and Gravities of Center, on Saturday October 4, 2003 at 7:00 pm at Babilonia 1808 - 1808 5th Street in Berkeley, off University Avenue.

This event is co-sponsored by San Francisco State University's Asian American Studies Department, and will be moderated by Professor Benito Vergara.

ABOUT MIRACLE FRUIT:
As three worlds collide, a mother's Philippines, a father's India, and the poet's contemporary America, the resulting impressions are chronicled in this collection of incisive and penetrating verse. The writer weaves her words carefully into a wise and affecting embroidery that celebrates the senses while remaining down-to-earth and genuine.

"When language, sensory experience, and imagination meet and mingle in an inventive and convincing way, we have the ingredients for those moments of grace that characterize important poems. Aimee Nezhukumatathil's Miracle Fruit is rich in such luscious moments. Every line is alive with the excitement of what can be known about the world, every poem bursting with an eagerness to share it."
--Gregory Orr, Judge, Second Annual Tupelo Press Poetry Competition

ABOUT GRAVITIES OF CENTER:
Contained in this collection are poems and prose pieces which exhibit Barbara's oftentimes eclectic style/sensibilities and willingness to experiment with form and language. With serious and playful poems very much rooted in San Francisco Bay Area urban and suburban cultures, settings, and vernaculars, a geographically faraway Philippines is never absent from this Pilipina American writer's consciousness. Consistent throughout Gravities of Center are themes of longing, desire, diaspora, postcoloniality, feminism, and coming of age.

About the poets:

Aimee Nezhukumatathil was born in Chicago in 1974. She received her B.A. in English and received her M.F.A. in poetry and creative non-fiction from Ohio State University. She is the author of a chapbook, Fishbone, and was the Middlebrook Poetry Fellow at the Institute for Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin. She is currently an assistant professor of English at the State University of New York, Fredonia. She is the author of Miracle Fruit (Tupelo Press, 2003)

Barbara Jane Reyes was born in Manila and raised in the SF bay Area suburb of Fremont. She received her BA in Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, where she served as editor-in-chief of Maganda Magazine, and is currently working on her MFA in poetry at SF State University. She is the author of Gravities of Center (Arkipelago Books, 2003).

Saturday October 4, 2003 @ 7:00 pm

Babilonia 1808
1808 - 5th Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
510-549-1808
www.bwf.org

For more information, contact Mike Price 510-549-1808.

Babilonia 1808's mission includes promoting dialogue and cultural exchange between communities, while challenging audiences with thought-provoking contemporary art. Babilonia 1808 offers visitors the opportunity to experience diverse local, national, and international art in a casual, non-institutional environment.

Posted by the wily filipino at September 15, 2003 12:18 PM