In conjunction with the exhibition Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures and the accompanying publication, Last West, California-based poets Tess Taylor, Brynn Saito, and Marcelo Hernandez Castillo will read selections of their poetry focused on migrancy. The reading will be followed by a Q&A about the poets’ process working together on this project, moderated by Sarah Meister, curator in MoMA’s Department of Photography and organizer of the exhibition. Books will be available for purchase and signing after the event.
Tess Taylor is the author of five collections of poetry. Her chapbook The Misremembered World was selected by Eavan Boland for the Poetry Society of America’s inaugural chapbook fellowship, and The San Francisco Chronicle called her first book, The Forage House, “stunning.” Her second book, Work & Days, was hailed as “our moment’s Georgic” by critic Stephanie Burt and was named one of the 10 best books of poetry of 2016 by the New York Times. Taylor’s work has appeared in the Atlantic, Kenyon Review, Poetry, Tin House, the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Times, and on CNN, and she has received fellowships from MacDowell, Headlands Center for the Arts, and the International Center for Jefferson Studies. She served as Distinguished Fulbright US Scholar at the Seamus Heaney Centre in Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and has served as the poetry critic for All for over a decade. In spring 2020 she will publish two books of poems: Last West, part of Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures, and Rift Zone. She teaches poetry and nonfiction at University of California, Davis.
Brynn Saito is the author of two books of poetry, Power Made Us Swoon (2016) and The Palace of Contemplating Departure (2013), winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award and a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. She’s also written two chapbooks, Dear—, and Bright Power, Dark Peace, co-written with Traci Brimhall. Recently, Saito was featured in the Vogue article “Memory Keepers: Japanese American Internment Survivors and Descendants Speak Out.” Her poems have appeared in the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Currently, Brynn codirects Yonsei Memory Project (YMP) with Fresno artist, farmer, and writer Nikiko Masumoto; YMP utilizes arts-based inquiry to generate dialogue connecting the WWII incarceration of the Japanese American community with current struggles for justice. She is also an assistant professor of creative writing in the English department at California State University, Fresno.
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo is a poet, essayist, translator, and immigration advocate. He is the author of the collection Cenzontle (2018), which won the 2017 A. Poulin Jr. prize, and the chapbook Dulce (2018). His memoir, Children of the Land, is forthcoming from Harper Collins in 2020. His work has appeared or been featured in the New York Times, People en Español, the Paris Review, Buzzfeed, Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts, New England Review, and Indiana Review, among others, and on PBS NewsHour and Fusion TV. He currently teaches in the Low-Res MFA program at Ashland University.
Volkswagen of America is proud to be MoMA’s lead partner of education.
Major support for Adult and Academic Programs is provided by the Estate of Susan Sabel.
Generous funding is provided by endowments established by Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art, Walter and Jeanne Thayer, and by the gifts of Alan Kanzer. Additional support is provided by the Annual Education Fund.