Poetry Reading: Caulbearer by Luisa A. Igloria

Please help us celebrate the poetry collection by Luisa A. Igloria, who will be joined by MG Bertulfo.

Please note: This event is free to attend, but registration is requested. Masks are required for our in-person events.

In many cultures, a caul is considered talismanic; and a child born with it, possessing luck or protection. Luisa A. Igloria invokes this metaphor to weave poems exploring the veiled intervals of transition experienced by those in the diaspora— or by anyone who has felt a severing from their origins. The poems in Caulbearer enter spaces not only of nostalgia, loss, and impossible return. They also offer opportunities for glimpsing pleasure in the re-imagining and telling of our own stories, for as long and as many times as we need, in a world still full of beauty and mystery.

Luisa A. Igloria is the author of Caulbearer (Immigrant Writing Series Prize, Black Lawrence Press, 2024), Maps for Migrants and Ghosts (Co-Winner, 2019 Crab Orchard Open Poetry Prize), The Buddha Wonders if She is Having a Mid-Life Crisis (2018), 12 other books, and 4 chapbooks. She is lead editor, along with co-editors Aileen Cassinetto and Jeremy S. Hoffman, of Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the U.S. (Paloma Press, 2023), offered as a companion to the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5). Originally from Baguio City, she makes her home in Norfolk VA where she is the Louis I. Jaffe and University Professor of English and Creative Writing at Old Dominion University’s MFA Creative Writing Program. She also leads workshops for and is a member of the board of The Muse Writers Center in Norfolk. Luisa is the 20th Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia (2020-22), Emerita. During her term, the Academy of American Poets awarded her a 2021 Poet Laureate Fellowship.

MG (Mary Grace) Bertulfo lives and writes at the intersection of nature, culture, and spirituality.She has written professionally for television and children’s education in such venues as CBS, PearsonEducation Asia, and Schlessinger and for conservation magazines such as Sierra and ChicagoWilderness. Her award-winning fiction has appeared in Growing Up Filipino II, Our Own Voice, and The Oak Parker and her essays have appeared in various anthologies. She is a co-owner of Calypso Moon Studio, a working arts studio, in the Oak Park Arts District. Mary Grace is a member of the international N.V.M. and Narita Gonzalez Writers Group, the Historical Novel Society, New Moon Mondays, and the Acorn novelist workshop. She has served on the board of the Oak Park Arts District and was a local network rep for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. In 2017, she founded Banyan, an Asian American Writers Collective whose mission is to promote the visibility of Asian American Writers in Chicagoland and to uplift community spirit through the arts. http://www.mgbertulfo.com

Accessibility: This event is hosted at the bookstore, which is a wheelchair accessible space. Masks are required. Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis. To request ASL interpretation for this event, please email [email protected] by no later than 14 days before the event. For other questions or access needs, please email [email protected].

Host or Publisher Women & Children First