THE MAKING OF SELF THROUGH POETRY

10:30 am - 11:30 am
| Location of Session: Swartz Stage
Adult Sessions

Start of Signing: 11:45 am
| Signing Location: Festival Marketplace

My Schedule

About the Event

Poetry asks us to pay close attention––to words, to line breaks, to one another. Ayokunle Falomo’s Autobiomythography of reimagines the limits of language, traverses the friction of different heritages, and asks questions about fatherhood. In Emily Bludworth de Barrios’s Rich Wife, her expansive long poems traverse landscapes of motherhood, marriage, and wealth. These writers will discuss parenthood, the unspoken contracts of life, and the experimentation of poetic form.

About the Author

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Author

Emily Bludworth de Barrios

Emily Bludworth de Barrios is the author of Rich Wife, winner of the Four Lakes Prize in Poetry; her previous books include Shopping, or The End of Time, winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. Her poems have appeared in publications such as Harvard Review, Copper Nickel, The Poetry Review, and Oxford Poetry. She was raised in Houston, Cairo, and Caracas, and now lives in both Houston, Texas, and Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.

Photo Credit: B.A. Moye

Ayokunle Falomo

Ayokunle Falomo is Nigerian, American, and the author of Africanamerican’t and his new poetry collection, Autobiomythography of. He is a recipient of fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, MacDowell, and the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program.

Moderator

Laura Van Prooyen

Laura Van Prooyen is author of three collections of poetry: Frances of the Wider Field (Lily Poetry Review Books) a finalist for the Helen C. Smith Memorial Award for Best Book of Poetry, Texas Institute of Letters; Our House Was on Fire (Ashland Poetry Press) nominated by Philip Levine and winner of the McGovern Prize; and Inkblot and Altar (Pecan Grove Press). She is also co-author of Text Structures from Poetry, a book of writing lessons for educators of grades 4-12 (Corwin Literacy). Van Prooyen is the Managing Editor for The Cortland Review, facilitates free online workshops with Community Building Art Works for healthcare workers, is the founder of Next Page Press, and this spring is teaching poetry as visiting faculty at Trinity University. She lives in San Antonio, TX.