Full Recording - Union of Concerned Scientists Poetry of Science Events

Mar 7

Elizabeth was one of the poets invited to the UCS event Poetry of Science, on October 2021. Here’s the recording of the full event:

A virtual conversation among five contemporary poets whose work explores science and our relationship to the earth.

Speakers:

• Elizabeth J. Coleman (moderator, editor of HERE: Poems for the Planet)

• Kimiko Hahn

• Jane Hirshfield

• Jenny Qi

• Sarah Sala

Including a special appearance by Maria Melendez Kelson.

@kimiko.hahn @PoetryFound @JQiii @MKelsonAuthor @UCSUSA

Kimiko Hahn is the author of ten books of poems, including: Foreign Bodies(W. W. Norton, 2020); Brain Fever (WWN, 2014), and Toxic Flora (WWN, 2010), both collections prompted by science; The Narrow Road to the Interior(WWN, 2006) a collection that takes its title from Basho’s famous poetic journal; The Unbearable Heart (Kaya, 1996), which received an American Book Award; Earshot (Hanging Loose Press, 1992), which was awarded the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize and an Association of Asian American Studies Literature Award. As part of her service to the CUNY community, she initiated a Chapbook Festival that became an annual event co-sponsored by major literary organizations. Since then, she has added chapbooks to her publication list: Write it!, Brittle Process, Brood, Ragged Evidence, A Field Guide to the Intractable, Boxes with Respect, The Cryptic Chamber, and Resplendent Slug. In 2017, she and Tamiko Beyer collaborated on the chapbook Dovetail.

Jane Hirshfield's most recent, ninth book of poetry is Ledger (Knopf, 2020). Among the foremost voices for the biosphere in American poetry, she founded Poets for Science, in conjunction with the first 2017 March for Science in Washington, D.C. The project has appeared also in New York, Chicago, Portland, Cambridge, Nashville, et al. Inducted in 2019 into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Hirshfield's other honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, National Endowment for the Arts, and Academy of American Poets. Her work appears in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Poetry, The Paris Review, and ten editions of The Best American Poetry. A former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Hirshfield has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, U.C. Berkeley, and elsewhere.

Jenny Qi is the author of Focal Point, winner of the 2020 Steel Toe Books Poetry Award. Her essays and poems have been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Tin House, ZYZZYVA, Rattle, and elsewhere, and she has received fellowships and support from Tin House, Omnidawn, Kearny Street Workshop, and the San Francisco Writers Grotto. Born in Pennsylvania to Chinese immigrants, she grew up mostly in Las Vegas and Nashville and now lives in San Francisco, where she completed her Ph.D. in Cancer Biology. She is working on more essays and poems and translating her late mother’s memoirs of the Chinese Cultural Revolution and immigration to the U.S.

Sarah M. Sala is a queer poet of Polish-Lebanese descent. Her debut collection, Devil’s Lake (Tolsun 2020) was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. She is the founder of the free poetry workshop, Office Hours, and Poetry Editor at the Bellevue Literary Review. She is a clinical associate professor in the expository writing program at New York University. Her work appears in BOMB, the Southampton Review, and the Los Angeles Review.

Maria Melendez Kelson is author of two collections of poetry from University of Arizona Press: How Long She'll Last in This World (2006), and Flexible Bones(2010). She has been a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Poetry, a two-time Honorable Mention recipient for the International Latino Book Awards, and a finalist for the Colorado Book Award. Her essays appear in Ms. Magazine, Sojourns and elsewhere, and her poetry and essays are widely anthologized, most recently in Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity & the Natural World. NPR’s American Democracy Project broadcast several of her essays on arts & activism, and she currently edits Pilgrimage, a literary magazine emphasizing the themes of spirit, witness, and place. As an independent editorial consultant, she helps new and established writers create dynamic manuscripts.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is a national nonprofit organization founded more than 50 years ago by scientists and students at MIT ( Massachusetts Institute of Technology.)

They use rigorous, independent science to solve our planet's most pressing problems. Joining with people across the country, we combine technical analysis and effective advocacy to create innovative, practical solutions for a healthy, safe, and sustainable future.

They are a group of nearly 250 scientists, analysts, policy and communication experts dedicated to that purpose.