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Fri, May 09, 2008 02:05:47 PMFrom:
City Lights Books
Subject:
City Lights Events | Mark Yakich and State of Exile Book Launch
@
City Lights Bookstore
All events are free and open to the public.
Unless otherwise noted, all events take place at
City Lights Bookstore
261 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-362-8193
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Tuesday, May 13, 2008, 7 pm
reading from
The Importance Of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine
published by
Penguin Poets
A new collection from the National Poetry Series award winner
Mark Yakich ’s acclaimed debut collection, Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross, examined the blessing and curse of romantic love in its multiplicities. The poems in his new collection approach questions of suffering and atrocity (e.g., war, genocide, fallen soufflés) with discerning humor and unconventional comedy. These poems show how humor can be taken as seriously as straight-ahead solemnity and how we can re-envision solemnity in terms other than lamentation, protest, and memorial.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008, 7 pm
Join City Lights Editorial Director Elaine Katzenberger, poet Graciela Trevisan and a local poet TBA to celebrate the release of State of Exile, poems by Cristina Peri Rossi, translated by Marilyn Buck. As both writer and translator share the experience of living in exile--Peri Rossi in Spain, far from her native Uruguary; Buck in Federal Penitentiary in Dublin, CA--we will hear recordings and stories from those who have collaborated creatively with these strong women.
"State of Exile is a haunting work that sat for decades, awaiting, like cicadas, its proper season. That time is now."
-- Mumia Abu Jamal
Considered a leading light of the "Latin-American Boom" generation, Cristina Peri Rossi was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. She was forced to leave her country at the age of thirty-one when her work was banned and her life was threatened by a repressive military dictatorship, and in 1972 she moved to Spain, where she still resides.
This collection of poems, written during her journey to Spain and over the first years of her self-exile, was so personal that it remained unpublished for almost thirty years. State of Exile is infused with the tremendous sense loss and alienation, the terrible doubt, sorrow and remorse that come with the abandonment of one's country, family and friends. And yet, the work is inspired, both by the knowledge that survival is a political, social and human imperative, and by the creative process that occurs when one searches for new reference points, new family and new relationships in the face of persistent nostalgia. In a world in which so many have been forced into exile, both political and economic, these poems bear witness and offer hope.
The poems are accompanied here by two brilliant essays on exile, one by Peri Rossi, written upon their Spanish publication in 2003, and the other by translator Marilyn Buck, an American political prisoner, exiled in her own country.
Cristina Peri Rossi is the author of 37 works, including Ship of Fools. She lives in Barcelona, Spain.
Marilyn Buck was a political activist in the 1970s. She is currently serving an 80-year sentence at a federal penitentiary in Dublin, CA.
This email was sent to clifordharry@gmail.com, by City Lights Books.
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