"It’s a Mask / It’s a Virus / It's a Knee"--Short Film Screening & Poetry Reading
Schedule
Wed Jun 29 2022 at 06:00 pm
Location
HOLOCAUST MUSEUM HOUSTON | Houston, TX
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“It’s a Mask / It’s a Virus / It’s a Knee” is a collective, communal poetry video collage comprised of poems written by Houstonians about their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, curated by 2021 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow and Houston Poet Laureate Emeritus Leslie Contreras Schwartz. The project features Houston activists, writers and performers who lend their voices to experiences ranging from the perspectives of students to healthcare workers, to loved one’s dealing with a family member’s COVID infection, as well as people dealing with anxiety, trauma and rage after the George Floyd murder.The screening debut of “It’s a Mask / It’s a Virus / It’s a Knee" will be followed by a reading of poems by poets ire’ne lara silva and Leslie Contreras Schwartz on illness, COVID-19 survival and the body’s narrative of resilience in response to trauma and sickness.
This exhibit is made possible by the Academy of American Poets with funds from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
The event will be hosted in person. Admission is free and open to the public.
IRE'NE LARA SILVA is the author of four poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, and FirstPoems, two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán. She and poet Dan Vera are also the co-editors of Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands, a collection of poetry and essays. ire’ne is the recipient of a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Most recently, ire’ne was awarded the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction. ire’ne is currently a Writer at Large for Texas Highways Magazine and is working on a second collection of short stories titled, the light of your body. Website: irenelarasilva.wordpress.com
LESLIE CONTRERAS SCHWARTZ is a 2021 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow and the 2019-2021 Houston Poet Laureate. She is the author of four collections of poetry: Black Dove / Paloma Negra (FlowerSong Press, 2020), which was named a finalist for the Helen C. Smith Memorial Award for 2020 Best Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters; Fuego (St. Julian Press, 2016); and Nightbloom & Cenote (SJP, 2018), a semi-finalist for the 2017 Tupelo Press Dorset Prize, judged by Ilya Kaminsky.
Her work has appeared in AGNI, Missouri Review, Iowa Review, [PANK], Verse Daily, Pleiades, Zocalo Public Square, Catapult and Xicanx: 21 Mexican American Writers of the 21st Century (University of Arizona, 2022), edited by ire’ne lara silva, among other publications. She is a member of the Macondo Writers’ Collective.
She has collaborated or been commissioned for poetic projects with the City of Houston, the Houston Grand Opera, and The Moody Center of the Arts at Rice University. She is a proud disabled poet and community activist; her poet laureate community work includes writing a workshop resource book on poetry for healing, storytelling and mental wellness, and overseeing murals from COVID communal poems she curated from Houstonian's submitted poems. She is currently a faculty member at Alma College's MFA low-residency program in creative writing.
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Where is it happening?
HOLOCAUST MUSEUM HOUSTON, 5401 Caroline St.,Houston,TX,United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays: