Ana Castillo and Benjamin Hollander: February 6, 2014

The Poetry Center presents Ana Castillo and Benjamin Hollander, reading from new works, in each case books adapting the form of the novel with the strategies and sensibility of the poet, then engaging with one another and the audience. Hollander reads from his experimental novel, In the House Un-American (Clockroot Books/Interlink, 2013). Castillo follows, reading from her novel in verse, Watercolor Women, Opaque Men (Northwestern University Press, 2015). The poets are introduced by Steve Dickison. 

Note: the quality of this digital video from Spring 2014 is compromised due to the loss of master-files from failure of a 'failsafe' set of mirrored hard-drives; fortunately, a compressed video file could be retrieved from DVD backup. 

 

 

Publisher
American Poetry Archives
Location
The Poetry Center, San Francisco State University
Date
2014-02-06
Event Run Time
01:40:57
Contributors
Steve Dickison
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.

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Benjamin Hollander (00:32:54)

Benjamin Hollander reads from his novel, In the House Un-American.

Ana Castillo (00:30:04)

Ana Castillo reads several sections from her novel in verse Watercolor Women, Opaque Men: "Mama Grande," "El Chicle." She tells a story of living in Chicago and a poem dedicated to her son, then reads a different, new poem, titled "When Snow Turns to Rain in the City of the Salt Lake and It Is Still Winter."

She follows with her longer poem, "Like the People of Guatemala, I Want to be Free of These Memories," on Sister Dianna Ortiz, an American Roman Catholic missionary who was raped and tortured by the Guatemalan military during that country's civil war and the genocide of its indigenous people. Castillo closes with "I Ask the Impossible," written as a challenge to herself to compose a love poem. 

Conversation (00:28:04)

Ana Castillo and Benjamin Hollander engage in conversation with each other and the audience. Topics include the "responsibilities of poets", culture, art-making, and tragedy.

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