Sally Wen Mao: Poetic Awakening

Poetry Centered

Sally Wen Mao shares poems that trace her awakening as a poet, invoking teachers both in person and on the page. She introduces Claribel Alegría on how to express the unknowable and untraceable (“Savoir Faire”), Terrance Hayes on transformation as the role of poetry in the world (“The Deer”), and Bhanu Kapil on poetic language as a means of collapsing borders (“Humanimal”). Mao concludes with her poem “a dream or a fox,” written after Lucille Clifton’s “A Dream of Foxes.”

Find the full recordings of Alegría, Hayes, and Kapil reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:
Claribel Alegría (1997)
Terrance Hayes (2016)
Bhanu Kapil (2008)

فصول

1. Introduction (00:00:00)

2. Claribel Alegría's "Savoir Faire" (00:01:27)

3. Terrance Hayes' "The Deer" (00:07:25)

4. Bhanu Kapil's "Humanimal" (00:16:28)

5. Sally Wen Mao reads “a dream or a fox” (00:32:58)