The PEN America World Voices Festival is the premier celebration of writing from the United States and around the world.

Schedule of Events:

7:00 PM – 8:30 PM: “A self is a fold of forces”: Poetics of the human and more-than-human at The Preserve
“The purpose of poetry,” Czesław Miłosz wrote, “is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person.” The lifeblood of every ecosystem is diversity and interdependence. Just as no organism is separate from all other organisms, no idea is unconnected to all other ideas. None of us live or think alone—what a relief! How good, how essential it feels to be held by a strong web of minds and hearts, to be part of a living system. Poets Amy Gerstler and Daniela Naomi Molnar write by incorporating multiple voices, including the voices of both humans and other-than-humans in their work. Moderated by literary curator Louise Steinman, these polyvocal poets will read their own and others’ poems and talk about what it means to write poetry in our current cultural moment, and why it takes a chorus to sing one’s sensibilities.

Buy Tickets