Miami Dade College’s (MDC) 37th Miami Book Fair (MBF), the nation’s finest and largest literary gathering, will be presented online for the first time in its history. The new virtual platform will feature more than 300 authors streaming free and on demand. The Fair represents diversity of subject matter, authors, and fairgoers. It introduces more than 20,000 children each year to books and writers, instilling in each of them a love for reading that will support their educational pursuits.
Available Friday November 20: listen to current U.S. Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, in conversation with Campbell McGrath.
Joy Harjo on When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry is a landmark collection celebrating the Indigenous peoples of North America – the first poets of this country – whose literary traditions stretch back centuries. Opening with a blessing from Pulitzer Prize-winner N. Scott Momaday, the book contains powerful introductions from contributing editors who represent the five geographically organized sections. Each begins with a poem from traditional oral literatures and closes with emerging poets, ranging from Eleazar, a 17th-century Native student at Harvard, to Jake Skeets, a young Diné poet born in 1991, and including renowned writers such as Luci Tapahonso, Natalie Diaz, Layli Long Soldier, and Ray Young Bear. When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through offers the extraordinary sweep of Native literature, without which no study of American poetry is complete.
Moderated by Campbell McGrath, Nouns & Verbs: New and Selected Poems.
The U.S. Poets Laureate in Conversation series features five U.S. Poets Laureate and the Librarian of Congress, who will sit down for a one-on-one conversation about their latest books and how the Library of Congress supports the position. Featuring ROBERT HASS on Summer Snow, BILLY COLLINS on Whale Day and Other Poems, JUAN FELIPE HERRERA on Every Day We Get More Illegal, and JOY HARJO, When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, in conversation with poet CAMPBELL MCGRATH. Also, NATASHA TRETHEWEY on Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir, in conversation with inaugural poet ELIZABETH ALEXANDER, President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; 14th Librarian of Congress DR. CARLA HAYDEN, with a special introduction by ROBERT CASPER, Library of Congress. Each conversation will be available on demand, one per day, through Sunday, Nov. 22
