Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston, Jean Valentine, Fred Marchant

8 SEPTEMBER 2013 — sunday

Poetry Flash presents a reading by Maxine Hong Kingston, Jean Valentine, and Fred Marchant, wheelchair accessible, request ASL interpreters one week in advance from editor@poetryflash.org, Diesel, A Bookstore, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, 3:00 (510/653-9965, dieselbookstore.com)

More about the readers
Maxine Hong Kingston's most recent book is a memoir-in-verse I Love a Broad Margin to My Life. Her previous memoirs and works of nonfiction and fiction include The Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book, a novel, and The Fifth Book of Peace. She is also the editor of Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, an anthology of writings from more than a decade of writing-and-meditation workshops she's led for Vietnam veterans and others to heal themselves through art. Among her honors are the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, PEN West Award in Fiction, and a National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Fred Marchant's latest book of poems is The Looking House. Ilya Kaminsky says, "In a time of lies and mediocre ironies in literature, here is the voice that is never afraid to say what matters. This is the poetry of home, yes—but the many doors and windows in this book first and foremost ‘teach the heart how to be a heart.'" The author of three previous collections, including Full Moon Boat, Marchant was one of the first Marine officers to be honorably discharged as a conscientious objector during the war in Vietnam.
Jean Valentine's latest book of poems, her eleventh, is Break the Glass. Library Journal says of it, "As elliptical and demanding as Emily Dickinson, Valentine consistently rewards the reader." It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She recently co-translated, with Ilya Kaminsky, Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva, one of the great Russian poets of the early twentieth century. Her honors include a National Book Award, the Wallace Stevens Award, and the Shelley Memorial Award.