Poetry Month at St. John’s! (Readings on March 17, April 7, April 24, April 28)

We have a full set of Poetry events at SJU in April!

The big event will be Erica Hunt’s D’Angelo Lecture on April 14th, and we have a constellation of four other brilliant poets coming to see us throughout the month. Details below!

All readings will be in the Back Lounge of the Writing Center during Common Hour.

Monday, March 17th, 2025

julie ezelle patton: Spring Poetry in Performance 

 julie ezelle patton is an award-winning multi-hyphenate poet, composer visual artist, permaculturist and performer, subject of special issue of  Chicago Review issue, recipient of fellowships from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, she has recent work in Other Influences: An Untold History of Feminst Avant-garde Poetry edited by Marcella Durand and Jennifer Firestone (MIT Press, 2024) and is the author of Notes for Some (Nominally) Awake (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2004), and The Flower Poem (Tender Buttons Press, 2024).

Reading followed by Q&A with Professors Lee Ann Brown and Erica Hunt, 2025 D’Angelo Chair, 1:50pm-3:15pm (COMMON HOUR) Back Lounge, Writing Center, First Floor of the St. Augustine Library, Queens Campus, St. John’s University

Open to the St. John’s University Community and to the General Public 

Co-sponsored by the Peter P. and Margaret A. D’Angelo Chair, Office of the Dean of St. John’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Poets & Writers, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, the LGBTQIA+ Center and the St. John’s University English Department

 Monday April 7th, 2025

Spring Poetry in Performance: Stephanie Burt

Stephanie Burt:  Influential poet, critic, editor and Donald P. and Katherine B. Lokar Professor of English at Harvard University, Burt is author of  volumes, We Are Mermaids (Graywolf, 2022), Parallel Play: Poems (Graywolf), and editor of the anthology Super Gay Poems: LGBTQIA+ Poetry After Stonewall  (Harvard University Press, 2025).

Reading followed by Q&A with Professors Lee Ann Brown and Erica Hunt, 2025 D’Angelo Chair, 1:50pm-3:15pm (COMMON HOUR) Back Lounge, Writing Center, First Floor of the St. Augustine Library, Queens Campus, St. John’s University

Open to the St. John’s University Community and to the General Public 

Co-sponsored by the Peter P. and Margaret A. D’Angelo Chair, Office of the Dean of St. John’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Poets & Writers, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, the LGBTQIA+ Center and the St. John’s University English Department

Tonya Foster,  poet, essayist, black feminist scholar and the George and Judy Marcus Endowed Chair of San Francisco State University. Former fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, author of A Swarm of Bees in High Court and La Grammaire des Os, co-editor of Third Mind: Creative Writing through Visual Art (Teachers & Writers Collaborative).

Reading followed by Q&A with Professors Lee Ann Brown and Erica Hunt, 2025 D’Angelo Chair, 1:50pm-3:15pm (COMMON HOUR) Back Lounge, Writing Center, First Floor of the St. Augustine Library, Queens Campus, St. John’s University

Open to the St. John’s University Community and to the General Public 

Co-sponsored by the Peter P. and Margaret A. D’Angelo Chair, Office of the Dean of St. John’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Poets & Writers, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, the LGBTQIA+ Center and the St. John’s University English Department

Monday, April 28th, 2025

Spring Poetry in Performance: LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs 

A writer, vocalist and performance/sound artist, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs is the author of Village (Coffee House Press 2023), TwERK (Belladonna, 2013) as well as the co-editor of Coon Bidness.  Diggs has presented and performed at California Institute of the Arts, El Museo del Barrio, The Museum of Modern Art, and Walker Art Center and at festivals including: Explore the North Festival, Leeuwarden, Netherlands; Hekayeh Festival, Abu Dhabi; International Poetry Festival of Copenhagen; Ocean Space, Venice; International Poetry Festival of Romania; Question of Will, Slovakia; Poesiefestival, Berlin; and the 2015 Venice Biennale.  As an independent curator, artistic director, and producer, Diggs has presented events for BAMCafé, Black Rock Coalition, El Museo del Barrio, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and the David Rubenstein Atrium.  Diggs has received a 2020 C.D. Wright Award for Poetry from the Foundation of Contemporary Art, a Whiting Award (2016) and a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship (2015), as well as grants and fellowships from Cave Canem, Creative Capital, New York Foundation for the Arts, and the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission, among others. She lives in Harlem and teaches part-time at Brooklyn College.

Reading followed by Q&A with Professors Lee Ann Brown and Erica Hunt, 2025 D’Angelo Chair, 1:50pm-3:15pm (COMMON HOUR) Back Lounge, Writing Center, First Floor of the St. Augustine Library, Queens Campus, St. John’s University

Open to the St. John’s University Community and to the General Public 

Co-sponsored by the Peter P. and Margaret A. D’Angelo Chair, Office of the Dean of St. John’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Poets & Writers, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, the LGBTQIA+ Center and the St. John’s University English Department