Making a spot-lit entrance on a balcony over Sampsonia Way, Swami reads three poems as she walks down the street, backed by a jazz band featuring Oliver Lake and Dee Alexander and her Trio, at City of Asylum Pittsburgh’s 9th annual Jazz Poetry Concert.
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For the last four years, Monterey Street in Pittsburgh’s Mexican War Streets neighborhood has become a stage for “I Don’t Know What I’d Do If I Couldn’t Speak My Mind,” an open day-long poetry event showcasing dozens of writers. We speak to event organizer Adel Fougnies.
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In this new edition of The Writer’s Block, Sampsonia Way talks to Sridala Swami, a poet and children’s writer. Swami is a resident of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program and a performer at the 2013 Jazz Poetry Concert.
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Two poems from Bones Will Crow, the first anthology of contemporary Burmese poetry translated into English: “Achilles’ Heel” by Khin Aung Aye and “The Sniper” by Pandora. Both poems are translated by the poet Ko Ko Thett.
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In recognition of Banned Books Week, Sampsonia Way presents a selection of exclusive interviews, excerpts, and profiles of the banned writers who have appeared in our pages – from imprisoned Chinese activists to American poets.
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Celebrated exiled poet Liao Yiwu performs his poem, “Massacre,” forcing open the memory and aftermath of the Tiananmen Square killings of 1989. He follows this reading with a musical performance with his singing bowls.
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A new amendment to the Offenses Code of Russia threatens the LGBT community. We interview Dmitry Kuzmin, an openly gay poet and publisher living in Moscow, about the political, cultural, and literary impacts this law could have.
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