Writers-at-Work Poetry Reading Series, Winter 2024

MT Vallarta

Wednesday, February 14, 2:10-3:30, Building 10, Room 222

MT Vallarta (they/them) is a poet and Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. They will be reading from their debut collection What You Refuse to Remember. A Pushcart Prize nominee, they are the author of the micro chapbook, The Science of Flowers (Blanket Sea). They have received awards and fellowships from Kundíman, Roots. Wounds. Words., The Rowan Foundation, and Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc. Their poetry is published and forthcoming in The Selkie, Shō, Nat. Brut, Apogee, and others. They are hard at work on a research monograph titled Dismantle Me: Queer, Mad, and Anti-imperialist Filipinx Poetry. They were raised in Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles.

Tomasz Różycki

(with translator Mira Rosenthal)

Monday, March 4, 2:10-3:30, University Union, Room 220

Tomasz Różycki is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose. He will be reading from his new collection in English translation, To the Letter. Over the last decade he has garnered almost every prize Poland has to offer as well as widespread critical acclaim, with work translated into numerous languages and frequent appearances at international festivals. He is the recipient of the 2023 Wisława Szymborska Prize and the 2023 Prix Grand Continent, among other awards. In the U.S., he has been featured at the Unterberg Poetry Center, the Princeton Poetry Festival, and the Brooklyn Book Festival. His volume Colonies (translated by Mira Rosenthal) won the Northern California Book Award and was a finalist for numerous other prizes, including the International Griffin Poetry Prize and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.