Billy Collins, Jonathan Safran Foer — Literary Events at 92Y

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OCTOBER LITERARY EVENTS
Billy Collins and Barbara Hamby
Collins’ Only New York Reading
Thursday, October 6, 7:30 pm, from $28
Billy Collins’ new book of poems is The Rain in Portugal – and this event marks his only New York reading.  “He is an American original — a metaphysical poet with a funny bone and a sly questioning intelligence,” wrote Edward Hirsch. Collins is joined by Barbara Hamby, whose latest collection is On the Street of Divine Love: New and Selected Poems. “Her poems are wild, outspoken, seriously funny, motor-mouth rambles that take us through hoops of association to places both unexpected and unimpeachable,” wrote Collins.
Rita Dove and Robin Coste Lewis
With an Introduction by Elizabeth Alexander
Thursday, October 13, 7:30 pm, from $22
Rita Dove’s newly published Collected Poems is “an absolutely astounding body of work,” wrote the Los Angeles Times. This event marks her only New York reading. Robin Coste Lewis won the 2015 National Book Award for Voyage of the Sable Venus, her first collection of poetry. “Altogether new, open, experimental and ground-breaking, Lewis privileges real life in all its complications,” wrote Claudia Rankine. Elizabeth Alexander, who recited her poetry at President Obama’s 2009 Inauguration, will introduce Dove and Coste Lewis.
Jonathan Safran Foer and Rabih Alameddine
Thursday, October 20, 7:30 pm, from $28
Jonathan Safran Foer’s much-anticipated new novel, Here I Am, showcases the same inventiveness, irreverence and emotional urgency as Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. “Virtuosic, visionary, ingenious, hilarious, heartbreaking — he brings an astonishing array of firepower to the page,” wrote the Village Voice.   Set over the course of one night in a psychiatric clinic, Rabih Alameddine’s new novel, The Angel of History, is the story of a poet wrestling with his past. “He is the rare writer who not only breaks our hearts, but gives every broken piece a new life,” wrote Yiyun Li.
On Julia Ward Howe
With Elaine Showalter and Joyce Carol Oates
Sunday, October 23, 11 am, from $42
A discussion of Elaine Showalter’s new biography of Julia Ward Howe, feminist pioneer and author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” “Showalter is that rarity: a scholar, feminist historian and sharp-eyed cultural critic with a knack for choosing subjects that are both entertaining and brilliantly illuminating,” wrote Joyce Carol Oates.
Martha Collins and Tyehimba Jess
Thursday, October 27, 8 pm, from $15
Martha Collins’s new book of poems, Admit One: An American Scrapbook, utilizes documentary sources to trace the history of scientific racism in early 20th-century America. “A strikingly original collection that combines brilliant storytelling and compelling commentary,” wrote The Washington Post. Tyehimba Jess’s Olio is a “21st-century hymnal of black evolutionary poetry, a theatrical melange of miraculous meta-memory,” wrote Nikki Finney. “Inventive, prophetic, wondrous, he writes unflinchingly into the historical clefs of blackface, black sound and human sensibility.”
On The Classics of Jewish Literature
With Adam Kirsch
Sunday, October 30, 11 am, $42
In The People and the Books, Adam Kirsch explores the Jewish literary tradition, from the biblical books of Deuteronomy and Esther, to the philosophy of Maimonides, to the Zionist manifestos of Theodor Herzl. “Through profiles of eighteen indelible figures and chronicles, Kirsch uncovers the unfailing excitements of a living, creative and abiding civilization,”  wrote Cynthia Ozick. This Books & Bagels event includes a light bagel brunch and an opportunity for informal conversation with the speaker and fellow audience members.


Discounted Tickets for 35 and Under – www.92Y.org/LexList

 

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