Arisa White and Raina J. Léon: April, 9 2015

Steve Dickison introduces Arisa White. White reads "The Voice of Fate," "What is the Length of Your Life," "Butterfly Lipped Mouths," "I Walk Into the Palm Readers Store," "Beautiful Lullaby," "I Make a Thread That Courses Through You," "Tonight the Moon is Hunter," and "I Went Knocking on the Neighbor's Door" from Post Pardon and A Penny Saved. She also takes questions from the audience and remarks on her influences, themes in her work, and inspiration sparked from the Cave Canem Foundation.

Leon reads two poems from her second book, Boogeyman Dawn "Monologues of a Shallow River," and "The Pistol's Confession." She then reads new work from her upcoming book Sombra: Dis(locate) (Salmon Poetry 2016) "Ish Ke Akiki or Hustle for a [Divine] Apocalypse," "On All Sides Named," "What to See in Paris," "Archangel," "To See the Sister," "To Josephine from Napoleon, Black and White," "Da da de da," "In the Space of a few Kilometers," "Hashtag Not a Martyr," "Core of Blackness," "But One Don't Love Me," "Holiness," and "Without my Glasses all my World Becomes Monet."

Raina J. Leon and Arisa White take questions from the audience. Arisa discusses the genesis of her opera, and wanting the poems to keen. Raina speaks to the importance of having women of color represented in the arts and humanities. She also touches on central themes and multiple languages used throughout her work.