Kathleen
Ossip's debut book, A Search Engine, is the winner of
the fifth annual American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize, as
chosen by Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott. Walcott writes that
it “leapt from the pile with wriggling force, it tautened the line, and
its own lines caught the light of genuine intelligence.” One poem, which
had already appeared in The Best American Poetry 2001, ends “...By
Tuesday,/ you were so splendid the bees rose.” A New York Times
interview says she “believes the notion that a reader has to ‘get’ a poem
is misguided and stems from the way children were taught poetry in school...’What
I am after is more of a response on an emotional level or a sensory level.’”
Ossip lives in Hastings-on-Hudson and teaches at the New School University in NYC.
photo of Kathleen Ossip by John Maggiotto
Patricia
Smith too is reaching for an emotional
and sensory response, and she gets it both through her words and her public
presentations. While she has three poetry books (Close to Death; Big
Towns, Big Talk; and Life According to Motown) and is published
in many fine literary journals, she is perhaps best known as a four-time
national individual champion of the high-energy poetry slam. Her unforgettable
performances have been caught on both CDs and in film—and once she appeared
by surprise at our own Open Mike and rocked the room.
Smith lives in Tarrytown and also writes plays and many other prose works including Africans in America, the companion volume to the four-part PBS series.
Suggested Donation: $5 ($3 for members)
The readings at the HVWC are made possible in part by a grant from the Bydale Foundation; with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts; and by Westchester Arts Council with funds from Westchester County Government, corporations and individuals.