Many must-see events this month featuring Lucille Clifton, Yusef Komunyakaa, Amiri Baraka, Paule Marshall. Al Young and more.
Lucille Clifton Sunday, December 3, 2 p.m. at Enoch Pratt Free Library, Wheeler Auditorium, 400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, Maryland.
National Book Award winner Lucille Clifton reads her poetry with Kyle Dargan, winner of the 2003 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and Baltimore/Washington area Cave Canem poets. A reception and book signing follow.
Al Young Thursday, December 7, 7:30-9 p.m. at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, 150 East San Fernando Street, San Jose, California.
Prize-winning poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, Al Young is featured in the library’s First Thursday Lecture Series.
Tracy K. Smith Thursday, December 7, 7:30 p.m. Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine.
Tracy K. Smith, author of The Body’s Question, won the 2003 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a 2004 Rona Jaffe Writers Award and a 2005 Whiting Writer's Prize.
Amiri Baraka Thursday, December 7, 7 p.m. Barnes & Noble, 396 Sixth Ave., New York City.
Poet and playwright Amiri Baraka reads from his collection, Tales of the Out and Gone.
Paule Marshall Thursday, December 7, 7 p.m. New York University, 70 Washington Square South, Greenberg Lounge, New York City.
Novelist Paule Marshall and three emerging African writers present their work in The New Generation Series in celebration of the series’ 10th anniversary.
Yusef Komunyakaa Friday, December 8, 7 p.m. The Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 West 135 Street, New York City.
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Cave Canem faculty member, Yusef Komunyakaa, and three emerging poets (Taiyon Coleman, Phebus Etienne and Dante Micheaux) respond to the African Comics Exhibit in a poetry reading at The Studio Museum in Harlem.
Elizabeth Alexander on Gwendolyn Brooks Tuesday, December 12, 7 p.m. Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers Street; $10, free to members.
Poet and essayist Elizabeth Alexander discusses renowned poet and novelist Gwendolyn Brooks.
Frederick Douglass, Lincoln, and the Civil War Thursday, December 14, 6:30 p.m. The New York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York City; (212)-873-3400.
David Blight, Harold Holzer, and James O. Horton discuss the 19th-century Douglass-Lincoln relationship and the role of African Americans in the Civil War.
African American Christmas Stories and Candlelight Tours Saturday, December 16, 5:30 p.m. Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site, 1318 Vermont Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C.; (202)-673-2402.
A festive evening of African-American Christmas stories and candlelight tours. The event will begin with the reading of Christmas stories from the best-selling A Treasury of African American Christmas Stories volumes I and II by Dr. Bettye Collier-Thomas. The program concludes with candlelight tours of the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House and refreshments.
Nashieqa Washington Saturday, December 16, 3-6 p.m. Smiley's Bookstore, 20220 Avalon Boulevard, Suite D, Carson, California; (310)-324-8444.
Author of Why Do Black People Love Fried Chicken? discusses questions she’s been asked about being black. Book signing follows.
