How might writing, reading, and interpreting poetry help us witness crisis and imagine alternatives? In honor of the release of the Jewish Currents Winter Gift Provisions: Poems Held Close in a Time of Crisis, which collects a column of reflections on single poems that ran online in early 2020, this webinar will engage with the project and the questions it poses about the role of poetry in this moment. In a conversation moderated by Poetry Editor Claire Schwartz, three poets featured in Provisions—Kaveh Akbar, Chase Berggrun, and Wendy Xu—will discuss the poems they selected, their own poetic practice, and how poetry helps them to be in this world—and imagine otherwise.
Kaveh Akbar is the author of Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf, 2021) and editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse (Penguin Classics, 2020).
Chase Berggrun is a trans woman poet. She is the author of R E D (Birds, LLC, 2018). Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry Magazine, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, and elsewhere.
Wendy Xu’s most recent book is Phrasis (2017), named one of the 10 Best Poetry Books of 2017 by the New York Times Book Review. A new book of poetry, THE PAST, will be published in Sept 2021 by Wesleyan. She lives in Brooklyn.
