Across Generations: Democratic Vistas project, curated by NY State Poet Laureate Patricia Spears Jones

Unexpected Coalitions: the People’s Poetry of Walt Whitman and June Jordan workshop, led by Conor ‘Coco’ Tomás Reed, weaves the vital legacies of two US poets: Walt Whitman, a European American gay man, and June Jordan, a Jamaican American bisexual woman. Reading across Whitman’s “Democratic Vistas” (1871) and Jordan’s “For the Sake of People’s Poetry: Walt Whitman and the Rest of Us” (1980), we will create unexpected coalitions through the process of writing and sharing poetry. We will read passages from both essays, and apply their insights to short writing prompts about present political crises and varied interpersonal needs. We will activate Jordan’s “Poetry for the People” pedagogies with such like-minded poets as Aja Monet and Solmaz Sharif. In the process, we will discuss how to create coalitions across our differences towards transformative care and social wellbeing.

Saturday, May 24 & Saturday, May 31

1 – 2:30 PM

City Lore

56 E 1st St, New York, NY 10003

Free and open to the public

Conor (Coco) Tomás Reed is a Puerto Rican~Irish, gender-fluid, independent scholar-organizer and the author of New York Liberation School: Study and Movement for the People’s University (Common Notions, 2023). Coco is co-developing the quadrilingual anthology Black Feminist Studies in the Americas and the Caribbean (Malpaís Ediciones), is a contributing editor with LÁPIZ Journal and Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative, and serves on the Board of Directors for CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies at CUNY.

This program is made possible by the generous support of the Academy of American Poets and the Mellon Foundation.

New York State Poet Laureate Patricia Spears Jones and Writers & Books, Rochester’s premier home for the literary arts, are pleased to announce Across Generations: Creating New Democratic Vistas, an interactive poetry project to take place March – June 2025 at at three or more New York State locations, including Writers & Books. Spears Jones is one of 22 poets laureate of states, counties, and cities across the nation selected by the Academy of American Poets to lead public programs in their respective communities, which, in the words of Academy President and Executive Director Ricardo Maldonado, “elevate civil discourse and remind us of the true possibility of a shared future.” Writers & Books will serve as the project’s administrator.

With her workshops/readings project, Spears-Jones aims to foster a greater connection between and among generations and inspire “the kinds of conversations that permit serious discussion of social justice, environmental degradation, systemic oppression, and cultural resistance, and what beauty means and how that meaning changes over time.”

City Lore and The Poetry of Every Day Life

Poetry plays a key role in New York’s ethnic and cultural communities. For many immigrant communities, poetry is the most accessible and profound way for people to express themselves. Every community in New York City has its poets. Since its inception, City Lore has been committed to finding ways to give these poets voice, finding the venues and formats for them to convey their artistry to their own communities and to the city at large, often finding new and innovative ways to communicate across languages.​ City Lore’s iconic POEMobile is an art truck that projects poems onto walls and buildings across New York City, often in conjunction with live poetry readings. It’s essentially an innovative, mobile platform for showcasing poetry in public spaces. The truck features a projection system and a stage, and has been used to display poems in multiple languages, creating a traveling “open source library” of poetry.

About City Lore

Founded in 1986, and now an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, City Lore’s mission is to foster New York City – and America’s – living cultural heritage through education and public programs.  We document, present, and advocate for New York City’s grassroots cultures to ensure their living legacy in stories and histories, places and traditions.  We work in four cultural domains:  urban folklore and history; preservation; arts education; and grassroots poetry traditions. In each of these realms, we see ourselves as furthering cultural equity and modeling a better world with projects as dynamic and diverse as New York City itself. For more info: http://www.citylore.org.

City Lore is made possible with support from:

Foundations: The Lily Auchincloss Foundation, La Vida Feliz Foundation, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, and The Sherman Foundation

Public: The Institute of Museum and Library Services, The New York State Council on the Arts with support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and generous individual donors.