SI OutLOUD Celebrates Bessie Coleman and ‘Moby Dick’
Staten Island OutLOUD is a community reading and discussion group that regularly meets in scenic locations around the island to share world literature with fellow New Yorkers. Whether to commemorate the latest literary event in history, or simply to enjoy an afternoon of poetry set against the backdrop of the city’s waterfront, OutLOUD is bound to reveal hidden gems of literature for both new and experienced readers alike.
On July 23, OutLOUD will celebrate the achievements of the first African-American aviator Bessie Coleman with excerpts from her biographies. The following week, on July 30, OutLOUD’s annual reading of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” will take place at the historic Fort Wadsworth, one of the author’s favorite spots in the city. The Staten Island Philharmonic will also perform.
For detailed information on the location and dates, please visit www.statenislandoutloud.org.
2011 Poets House Showcase and Readings
With over 50,000 volumes of poetry, Poets House, located in Lower Manhattan, possesses one of the nation’s largest open-access poetry collections. The annual Poets House Showcase exhibits all the poetry books and poetry-related literature that has been published in the past year, from chapbooks to multimedia projects and newly compiled anthologies. The exhibit will run through July 30.
Poets will also read from newly published books to coincide with the showcase’s annual celebration of contemporary poetry. The reading on July 21 will include celebrated poets like Susan Howe and Nathaniel Mackey, as well as acclaimed poetry translators like Susan Bernofsky and Eliot Weinberger. The last reading of the series will take place on July 26, with Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Albert Mobilio, Jena Osman, and Evie Shockley as the guest readers.
For more information, please visit www.poetshouse.org.
Sam Taylor-Wood’s ‘Ghosts’
Although often overshadowed by its more famous counterpart in Manhattan, the Brooklyn Museum houses an impressive collection of Egyptian and African art, as well as of American paintings, including a portrait of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart.
Until August 14, photographer and filmmaker Sam Taylor-Wood’s collection of images of the Yorkshire Moors will be on display at the Brooklyn Museum. Inspired by Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights,” “Ghosts” features the photographs Taylor-Wood took of the haunting landscape in West Yorkshire (where the photographer herself keeps a country house), including the Bronte Parsonage and Top Withens, the abandoned farmhouse said to be the source of inspiration for the Earnshaw residence.
For more information, please visit www.brooklynmuseum.org.
NYPL’s ‘Celebrating 100 Years’
Two months ago, the New York Public Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue celebrated its 100th anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, the library opened its “Celebrating 100 Years” exhibit, on view until December 31. Items on display include the personal belongings of English literature giants, from Virginia Woolf’s walking stick to Charles Dickens’s letter opener. A copy of “David Copperfield” marked with the author’s annotations is also on view, as well as a letter written by Romantic poet John Keats and T.S. Eliot’s typescript of “The Waste Land.”
The New York Public Library is one of the nation’s largest public library systems. The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street houses 15 million items alone, with cultural artifacts from ancient civilizations and important relics of American history within its collection.
For more information, please visit www.nypl.org.
