Martin Espada and Quincy Troupe May 4 in Distinguished Poets Series in Paterson

On Saturday, May 4 at 1pm, Martín Espada and Quincy Troupe will read for the Distinguished Poets Series at the Poetry Center at PCCC in Paterson.

Martín Espada was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1957. He has published almost 20 books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator. His latest collection of poems from Norton is called Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016). Other books of poems include The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006), Alabanza (2003), A Mayan Astronomer in Hell’s Kitchen (2000), Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996), City of Coughing and Dead Radiators (1993) and Rebellion is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands (1990). His many honors include the 2018 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Creeley Award, the National Hispanic Cultural Center Literary Award, an American Book Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the PEN/Revson Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. The Republic of Poetry was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The title poem of his collection Alabanza, about 9/11, has been widely anthologized and performed. His book of essays, Zapata’s Disciple (1998), was banned in Tucson as part of the Mexican-American Studies Program outlawed by the state of Arizona, and has been issued in a new edition by Northwestern University Press. A former tenant lawyer in Greater Boston’s Latino community, Espada is a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

Quincy Troupe is the author of nine volumes of poetry, three children's books, and the author, co-author, or editor of six non-fiction works. He collaborated with Miles Davis on his autobiography, Miles: The Autobiography: Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe, and with Chris Gardner on The Pursuit of Happyness, which spent more than forty weeks on the New York Times best-seller list and was made into a major motion picture starring Will Smith. Troupe has also written a screenplay for Miles and Me, the memoir of his friendship with Miles Davis. Poetry collections include Transcircularities: New and Selected Poems, winner of the 2003 Milt Kessler Poetry Award and selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the ten best books of poetry in 2002; The Architecture of Language, winner of the 2007 Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement; and Errançities, published 2012.

The Distinguished Poets Series is held on Saturdays at 1 pm at the Poetry Center located in the Hamilton Club at 32 Church Street, Paterson, New Jersey. (directions) All readings are free and open to the public. Open readings follow the featured readers when time allows.

Writing workshops are held on the mornings of these readings with the poets in the same location. Pre-registration is required for these workshops and a fee of $20 must be submitted with registration. For questions and to confirm that workshops are still open to registration, email sdesai@pccc.edu or call 973-684-6555.

The Hamilton Club Building is wheelchair accessible; large print materials and FM assistive listening devices available on request. The Poetry Center at PCCC is funded, in part, by a grant from the NJ State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Please contact 973-684-6555 for availability.