About this collection

The Poetry Center's Tripwire Cross-Cultural Poetics Series, presented in conjunction with Tripwire: a journal of poetics, focuses on cultural and poetic work seen from outside narrow nation-state points of view, presenting poets and related artists often deeply engaged in the poetics and politics of translation and offering models for practice. Launched in Fall 2018, with Antena Aire (formerly Antena), a language justice and language experimentation collaborative founded in 2010 by Jen Hofer and John Pluecker, the program series in Fall 2019 presented Cardboard House Press and its Cartonera Collective, with Peruvian poet-translators Giancarlo Huapaya, José Antonio Villarán, and Mexican poet and artist Omar Pimienta, and included a free public bookmaking workshop run by members of the Cartonera Collective.

Subsequently, the series has presented: Momtaza Mehri, Somali-British poet and essayist, with writer and art critic Zoé Samudzi, reading poetry and other texts and talking about African and diasporic concerns (March 2021); Etel Adnan, a Memorial Tribute, with six writers and artists variously influenced by beloved poet, writer and artist Adnan's life and work: Zaina Alsous, David Buuck, Naz Cuguoğlu, Fady Joudah, Stefania Pandolfo, and Camille Roy (May 2022); prolific poet-translators Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse and Shook, in conversation with Êzidî poet and translator, SF State graduate student Zêdan Xelef (May 2023), and Egyptian poet Safaa Fathy (April 2024), on her first US tour, following stops in New York City, at Bard College, and at U Penn.