Two award–winning poets appearing at Rio Grande campus in March
John Poch and Usha Akella will be reading from their recent works in the Rio Grande Gallery Theater on March 5th at 7 pm.
By Chelsea Biondolillo
John Poch and Usha Akella are not content to merely write beautifully evocative poems and win awards. They are also active as teachers, collaborators, and contributors to the poetry community. Both poets will be reading from their recent works in the Rio Grande Gallery Theater on March 5th at 7 pm.
Usha Akella’s work has been awarded the Maryland Poetry Review’s Egan Memorial award and was a finalist in the Wisconsin University Press contest. In 2003, she worked with the Greenburgh Arts and Culture Committee to create the Poetry Caravan. This organization works to “bring poets and poetry to people in our community who cannot reach poetry on their own.” She has been invited to read all over the US and abroad, and in 2006, she won the Wine poem award at the Struga Poetry evenings, the oldest world poetry festival held in the Republic of Macedonia. She was the first non–Macedonian winner of the Wine award in 45 years. Her work is lyrical and devotional, evoking the mysticism of Sufi poets. Her books include A Face That Does Not Bear the Footprints of the World (Monsoon Editions, 2008) and Kali Dances… So do I (Authors and Writers, 2000).
John Poch’s first book, Poems, was published by Orchises Press in 2004. His most recent book, Two Men Fighting with a Knife (Story Line Press, 2008), won the prestigious Donald Justice Poetry prize. He has edited, with Chad Davidson, the irreverent collection Hockey Haikus (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2006) and is an ongoing editor of the literary magazine 32 Poems. His work has appeared in The Nation, The Yale Review, New England Review and several others. He teaches creative writing at Texas Tech University. Speaking about the poems in Two Men Fighting with a Knife, David Mason said this of Poch’s work: “[he] mines these poems from a rich vein of American vernacular. He's a raconteur of Texas and ‘the old west ins and outs,’ offering a range of moods from anger to hilarity and grief, hewing close to actual lives, surprising us with crackerjack phrasing and vital talk.”
While each poet has a very distinct voice and subject matter, both use language to paint a sensory–rich landscape of imagery. They are being hosted by the creative writing department and this not–to–be–missed reading is open to the public.
