Booksmith presents Two Languages / One Community with poets Michael Warr and Chun Yu. They will be reading from and discussing their work.

Two Languages / One Community brings together African American and Chinese American writers in a rare cultural exchange based on dialogue and storytelling. Workshop participants write poems and short stories based on memories sparked by photographs of their parents, their younger selves, and other family members. The writing is translated in Chinese and English and published online at www.twolanguagesonecommunity.com and in the Catching Memory book series.

This is a free event, but RSVP is required.

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Michael Warr's books include Of Poetry and Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin (W.W. Norton), and from Tia Chucha Press The Armageddon of Funk, We Are All The Black Boy, and Power Lines: A Decade of Poetry From Chicago's Guild Complex. In 2017 he was named a San Francisco Library Laureate. Other poetry honors include a Creative Work Fund award for his multimedia project Tracing Poetic Memory in Bayview Hunters Point, PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature, Black Caucus of the American Library Association Award, Gwendolyn Brooks Significant Illinois Poets Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. Michael is the former Deputy Director of the Museum of the African Diaspora and has extensive experience in community-based arts. He became a board member of the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library in 2018. Follow his creative work at https://michaelwarr-creativework.tumblr.com/.

Chun Yu, Ph.D. is the author of the multi-award-winning memoir Little Green (Simon & Schuster) and a historical graphic novel in progress (Macmillan) and more. Her work has been published in the award-winning anthology Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, Open Doors, Boston Herald, MIT Tech Talk, etc. Her new bilingual poetry collection in English and Chinese and her graphic novel on Chinese immigration experience have won San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity and Individual Artist Grants. Her work merges science, art, and spirituality based on her experiences as an immigrant from an ancient culture undergoing revolution to a new world of transformative science and technologies. She has won support from the Zellerbach Foundation and Poets & Writers etc. for her community work in poetry and writing. Chun holds a B.S. and M.S. from Peking University and a Ph.D. from Rutgers in chemistry, and was a postdoctoral fellow at a Harvard-MIT joint program. Her website: www.chunyu.org.  

This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required.

To have a copy of Of Poetry and Protest, Little Green, and/or any of the authors' books sent to your door, order here or add the books to your cart when you register.