The Friends of the Concord Library will bring the poetry of Oliver de la Paz and Jill McDonough to the Goodwin Forum on Sunday, October 29, at 3 p.m.
Accounting the Migration Experience and America’s Inequities includes readings by both poets as well as a question-and-answer session, book signings and light refreshments.
De la Paz, who invokes “the perseverance and bold possibilities of his Filipino family as they strove for stability and belonging in America,” is the 2023-2025 poet laureate of Worcester. His new work, The Diaspora Sonnets, is long listed for the National Book Award and a finalist for the New England Book Award. He teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in the low-residency MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University.
McDonough received three Pushcart prizes and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress and other organizations. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, Slate, The Nation, The Threepenny Review and Best American Poetry. She teaches in the MFA program at UMass-Boston and offers College Reading and Writing in Boston jails. Her sixth poetry collection, American Treasure, “chronicles the unjust systems woven into the American fabric, while celebrating those who live in spite of them.”
