Virtual Poetry Reading with Margaret Randell and Cynthia Dewi Oka

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84308329737?pwd=RjJUdCtJVXRySjlvMHdXakJRRzVmUT09

Meeting ID: 843 0832 9737 – Passcode: 678146

Margaret Randell is a feminist poet, writer, photographer and social activist. Author of more than 150 books, releasing this month are Thinking About Thinking (not quite essays) and Out of Violence Into Poetry. She has lived for extended periods in Albuquerque, New York, Seville, Mexico City, Havana, and Managua. Shorter stays in Peru and North Vietnam were also formative. In the turbulent 1960s she co-founded and co-edited EL CORNO EMPLUMADO / THE PLUMED HORN, a bilingual literary journal which for eight years out of Mexico City published some of the most dynamic and meaningful writing of an era. From 1984 through 1994 she taught at a number of U.S. universities.

“My life and work have been profoundly informed by parents who gave me love and adventure, and encouraged creativity; the dramatic desert canyons, rich colors and open skies of the southwestern United States; Socialist ideals; the second wave of feminism; and the generous mentorship of many great friends and colleagues. My children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren are always with me, even when far away; and my spouse Barbara is bedrock. New York’s abstract expressionist painters in the 1950s, Mexico and her struggles of the 1960s, the Cuban revolution’s second brave decade in the 1970s, the Vietnamese people’s struggle against US attack and occupation in that same decade, and the Sandinista attempt to change Nicaragua in the early 1980s were places and events that shaped me. The exploration of ancient sites continues to be a source of nourishment, and I have long been involved with oral tradition. I deeply believe in humanistic values, combating our culture of violence and greed, and art as a tool for change.” Her memoir I Never Left Home: Poet, Feminist, Revolutionary came out in 2020.

Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of Fire Is Not a Country (2021), Salvage, and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water. She is Poetry Editor at Kweli Journal. Cynthia worked as an organizer, trainer, and fundraiser in social movements for gender, racial, economic, and migrant justice. As an immigrant and former young single mother with working-class roots, her aesthetics are guided by her core values: self-determination, collaboration, and attention to the peripheral. Cynthia has taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr College and literary/arts organizations including Murphy Writing of Stockton University, The Blue Stoop, and Asian Arts Initiative, with whom she partnered in the aftermath of the 2016 election to offer Sanctuary: A Migrant Poetry Workshop for immigrant poets based in Philadelphia. She has served as a visiting Distinguished Writer at Widener University, and conducted workshops and readings at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, The New School, New York University, Swarthmore College, and Williams College, among others.