World Literature Festival 2023: Language as Inheritance: Recommended Poetry Reads
The New York Public Library’s World Literature Festival celebrates books and writers from around the world and reflects Language as Inheritance. Discover free author talks, resources, book recommendations, and more for all ages in world languages.
The New York Public Library has kicked off its third annual World Literature Festival with an online conversation featuring poets Zeina Hashem Beck, José Olivarez, and Sun Yung Shin (see below). The panel “Language as Inheritance” invited the poets to share their work, as well as speak about how language and history influence their work. We had an engaging discussion, facilitated by NYPL library staffers Belinda Farley, Leanna Frankland, Ashley Dalle, and Farhan Islam.
Olivarez, José:
Promises of Gold = Promesas De Oro
by José Olivarez; Spanish translation by David Ruano González
A contemporary collection of the newest translated work from a Mexican poet - José Olivarez, as a Mexican; translated by a Mexicano poet - David Ruano Gonzalez, as a Mexicano. The first half of this heritage poetry collection is written in English and the second half is translated, on the reverse side; so it can be read from both sides of the book covers.
LatiNext
edited by Felicia Rose Chavez, José Olivarez, and Willie Perdomo
This anthology of The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4; explores gender, race, and sexuality; sampled in the aesthetic of Hip-hop, with the OST of Latinidad identity in the LatinX diaspora.
Citizen Illegal: Poems
by José Olivarez
A salient debut collection; suffused with lived experiences of living between Mexico and the US, asking if legality/illegality can permeate via default, by poet Olivarez, José.
Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience
edited by Patrice Vecchione and Alyssa Raymond
A necessary anthology; featuring 60+ poets and their poems, and a foreword by poet Javier Zamora.
End of Chiraq: A Literary Mixtape
edited by Javon Johnson and Kevin Coval ; with writers from Young Chicago Authors & Louder Than a Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival
A collection of poems, essays, raps, and stories; a literary mixtape of and for the city of Chicago aka Chiraq.
The Breakbeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop
by Kevin Coval, Quraysh Ali Lansana, & Nate Marshall
A collection of one of the most vibrant cultures to exist; spanning decades of traditional and contemporary works.
Hashem Beck, Zeina:
O
by Zeina Hashem Beck
Nominated and selected for NYPL’s Best book of 2022. A pensive and poignant collection of poems, odes, triptychs, and ghazals, by Lebanese poet Zeina Hashem Beck.
The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood
edited by Nancy Reddy, Emily Pérez
A collection of poetry highlighting the unedited assiduous experiences of motherhood.
Shin, Sun Yung:
Rough, and Savage: Poems
by Sun Yung Shin
An effusive yet terse body of work by Sun Yung Shin in her signature style of blended folktale and Korean history.
The Wet Hex
by Sun Yung Shin
The fourth collection of poetry by Sun Yung Shin is as imaginative as it is expansive.
“Incorporating sources such as her own archival immigration documents, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Christopher Columbus' journals, and traditional Korean burial rituals, Shin explores the ways that lives are weighed and bartered”
Unbearable Splendor
by Sun Yung Shin
A piquant, contemporary collection that blends multiform of identities with myths and Science fiction.
Skirt Full of Black: Poems
by Sun Yung Shin
Winner of the 2008 Asian American Literary Award for poetry. A debut collection of lyrical collages of immigration, the grief of war, language, and identity.
Thanku: Poems of Gratitude
Illustrated by Marlena Myles; edited by Miranda Paul
An anthology for children, abundant with poems expressing gratitude; from a diverse group of poets.
