Poetry Under the Stars
FREE Events at Longway Planetarium
Meet the Poets 6:30 - 7:00pm
Reading 7:00 - 8:30pm
No matter where you stand on Earth, look up and you’ll see the same sky as everyone else. Since the development of language, and even before, the stars and planets have been a source of wonder and mystery. No matter the language, people from every culture have pondered the night sky in amazement.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7
Juan E. Mestas: Spanish
Juan E. Mestas is a professor of Foreign Languages at the University of Michigan-Flint. Ex-Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Flint. He was born in Cuba, but grew up and studied in Puerto Rico at The University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras. He is the author of 2 or 3 books of Poetry in Spanish. He lives in Flint and Gilroy, California (the garlic capital of the world!)
Rafael H. Mojica: Spanish
Rafael H. Mojica is a poet from Mexico who lives and works in Flint. He writes poetry in English and Spanish and he serves as the poetry editor of Broadside, the magazine published in Flint. He is also a professor at UM-Flint who teaches with a great deal of enthusiasm.
Joseph Tyler: Spanish
Joseph Tyler was born in Mexico and grew up in San Diego, California. His poetry has appeared in newspapers in Mexico and Argentina, and in journals such as Discurso Literario and Maiz: Xicano Notebooks. Dr. Tyler read translations of poems and stories by Borges on which the author made comments. He is currently teaching Spanish at UM-Flint.
He lives in Flint and Horton, Michigan.
Also Presenting: Scott Russell – The Writing Center at U of M-Flint
TUESDAY, MARCH 13
Jamile Trueba Lawand: World Poetry in English Translation
Jamile Trueba Lawand teaches Spanish at the University of Michigan-Flint, where she also chairs the Foreign Languages Department and directs the “Middle Eastern” Studies Program. Born in Brazil, she was raised both in Michigan and Spain, and has travelled to several European destinations. Her interests include the literature of Spain, understanding cultural identity in the Spanish-speaking world, and the study of the Arabo-Islamic presence (711-1492) in Spain: Al-Andalus.
Ibaa Ismail: Arabic
Ibaa Ismail published her first collection of poems in Arabic "Horses of Light and Alienation”, then “Songs of the Soul” and “The Light of My Nation”, a collection of poems for children, then “Inflammations of An Emigrant”. Her latest collection is “The Awakening of Fire and Jasmine”. Ibaa’s poems were included in a number of anthologies, such as The Anthology of Arab American Poetry. She participated in many evening literary performances and symposiums sponsored by different American and Arab American cultural organizations.
Also presenting: Arabic students from U of M-Flint
TUESDAY, APRIL 10
Vittorio Trionfi: French
Vittorio Trionfi is an Assistant Professor of French at the University of Michigan-Flint. He has taught at the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan and at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has published and presented papers on Surrealism. His interests include French silent cinema theory and early 20th century avant-garde ideologies.
Also Presenting: French students from U of M-Flint
Grayce Scholt: English
Retired MCC English Professor Grayce Scholt, author of Bang! Go All the Porch Swings. Grayce Scholt was born in Oak Harbor, a small town in Northwestern Ohio -- its people and places the impetus of many of her poems. She taught in the MCC English Department from 1955 until her retirement in 1990. She lives in Flint’s East Village.
Also Presenting: Jan Worth-Nelson – U of M-Flint
Poetry Under the Stars is brought to you in partnership by Sloan*Longway and the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan-Flint.
Sponsored in part by Dr. Jamile T. Lawand, on behalf of the “Middle Eastern” Studies Program at the University of Michigan-Flint.