Talking about Home at the AWP 2012

One of the things that immigrant poets are always writing about is home.  We write about the homes we left behind, imagine what they were like back then and dream about what they're like now.  You see this in all the writers who left their home countries to come to America.  


This March 1 at 430 pm, I'll be talking about this idea of home at a panel with some other immigrant poets.  The occassion is the AWP conference in Chicago. 


The title of the panel is What is Home: The Poetics of Negotiating the Old, Reimagined and the New, Adopted Homeland, and I'll be there with poets Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, Raza Ali Hasan, Malena Morling, and Ilya Kaminsky. 


The session will be held in the State Ballroom at the Palmer House Hilton, 4th floor. If you're at the conference please stop by.  


By the way, here's the official description of the panel:  What is Home: The Poetics of Negotiating the Old, Reimagined and the New, Adopted Homeland


Political conflicts and wars often inspire immigrant poets to produce works rooted in two worlds: the old and the new, adopted homeland. The displaced poet arrives in America from Europe, Africa, or elsewhere, stuck in their old world, often with nostalgic, painful memories, looking for home on the new landscape. Is the new literature American, European, African, or just world literature? Our diverse panel will explore the poetics of negotiating the delicate spaces of home in our poetry.