Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Amy Sonnie, James Tracy and friends: September 10, 2021

Tags

The Poetry Center presents three outstanding Bay Area writer-activists, reading and in conversation on the radical potential written in the margins of history. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, renowned historian and activist (An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, et al.), reads from Not "A Nation of Immigrants": Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion (Beacon Press, 2021) and Amy Sonnie and James Tracy read from their newly updated Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Interracial Solidarity in 1960s-70s New Left Organizing (Melville House, 2011/revised edition 2021). Alternating between their readings the writers engage in conversation with one another and the audience.

Patrick Marks, proprietor of The Green Arcade, as emcee provides introductions and helps guide the conversation, and guest poets Leticia Del Toro and Josiah Luis Alderete, respectively, open and close the event with readings of their poems. Co-presented by the Howard Zinn Book Fair, The Green Arcade, and The Poetry Center.

Publisher: DocFilm Institute
Location: The Poetry Center (Remote Acess)
Date: 2021-09-10
Event Run Time: 01:23:33
Contributors: Leticia del Toro; Josiah Luis Alderete; Patrick Marks
Rights: ©© American Poetry Archives. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. For all other uses please email poetry@sfsu.edu.
Views: 1669
Downloads: 1098

Dunbar-OrtizSonnieTracy20210910DIG.mp3 (MP3 audio) Still1-Dunbar-OrtizRoxanne20210910.jpg (JPEG image) Still2-TracieJames20210910.png (PNG image) Still3-SonnieAmy20210910.jpeg (JPEG image)

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Amy Sonnie, and James Tracy (01:23:12)

Description

Patrick Marks emcees and kicks off the event by introducing Leticia Del Toro to read two poems, "Alive At Lampedusa" and "The Wailing." Both poems set the tone for the evening, by confronting early death, erasure, systemic oppression, and survival. Radical historians Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Amy Sonnie, and James Tracy then join in conversation, with each reading from their recently published works.

The conversation starts off with questions from Tracy and Sonnie for Dunbar-Ortiz, before she reads an excerpt from the second chapter of Not "A Nation of Immigrants." Following her reading, Dunbar-Ortiz poses a question about the manifestation of anti-racist teaching as documented in Sonnie and Tracy's book, Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power. They each respond before Sonnie reads an excerpt from their book. All three writers answer questions from Patrick Marks and the audience, before the event concludes with a guest reading from poet Josiah Luis Alderete from his new book, Baby Axolotls y Old Pochos (Black Freighter Press, 2021).