A Library of Light

Three women poets weave sensual rituals of grief, love, and luminosity. Danielle Vogel reads from her new book A Library of Light, a prose poetry memoir with meditations on cellular light and memory following her mother’s death. fahima ife performs ecstatic sonic rituals of soul retrieval in Septet for the Luminous Ones. Rounding out the line-up is Chicago emerging poet and 2024 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship finalist Stefania Gomez, who composes breathless “redwork” elegies at her loom.

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Murmurs from the poets:

“We are an ambiance of remains. Wreckage, re-configuring. We are an illuminated architecture. Nothing you know to name. We are a moving letter. Topologies of sound. We are never static, but echoic. As we make shape, we take it. The mouth, unmarooned.”
—Danielle Vogel, from A Library of Light

“when is the last time
we let sense warp
the witness

tangle the fields
something mystic
of love and its limits”
—fahima ife, from Septet for the Luminous Ones

“Last night, by candle light,
a woman unearthed me.
Together, she and I grieved
the impossibility of disappearing
into one another.”
—Stefania Gomez, from At the New York City AIDS Memorial

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This event is part of the Poetry Foundation’s fall 2024 season, . All Poetry Foundation events are completely free of charge and open to the public. Guests are encouraged to register in advance. The performance space is ADA compliant and wheelchair accessible, and the program will feature CART captioning and ASL interpretation. Masks are strongly encouraged and available at check-in. For more information about accessibility at the Poetry Foundation, please visit our Accessibility Guide.

In-Person Attendance: Masks are strongly encouraged and available at check-in for those who would like to wear one. The Foundation reserves the right to update this policy if community levels of COVID-19 increase significantly. Read our full COVID-19 Health & Safety Guidelines. Guests are encouraged to register in advance.

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Host or Publisher Poetry Foundation