Williams College Hosts Reading of Work by Transgender Poets

Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, executive assistant; tele: 413-597-4277; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 12, 2021—Williams College presents an evening of poetry and conversation featuring five transgender poets who will read and discuss their book of poetry, Subject to Change. The event is free and open to the public and will be held from 7:30 to 8:45 p.m. on Thursday, April 15. The conversation will be moderated by the book’s editor H. Melt, with an audience Q&A to follow.

Use the following Zoom link to attend the event:

https://williams.zoom.us/j/92229509756?pwd=MVVsdWJjaHgxbjhEcytiNlhXZlZBdz09

Passcode: 009139

Featuring poetry and interviews, Subject to Change collects the work of Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, Christopher Soto, beyza ozer, Cameron Awkward-Rich, and Kay Ulanday Barrett. Lauded by 2016-17 U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera as “a culture and power border-smasher and a piercing examination of brilliant, painful, and transcendent Trans consciousness and experience,” this anthology is a testament to the power of trans poets speaking to one another—about family, race, class, disability, religion, and the body. Through a range of trans experiences and poetics, Subject to Change expands the possibilities of what it means to be both trans and a writer in the 21st century.

The event is sponsored by Williams Reads, Claiming Williams, the Department of English, the Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, the Class of 1946 Memorial Fund for World Brotherhood, the Lecture Committee, and the Oakley Center for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Williams Reads aims to foster new connections among students, staff, faculty, and community members by exploring diversity through a common reading experience. Developed by the Committee on Diversity and Community (CDC), Williams Reads is an initiative offered as an opportunity for us to explore a book together that will help us to celebrate and deepen our appreciation of diversity. It is a goal of the CDC to select a book that will stimulate community engagement and challenging conversation.

For more information, visit: https://events.williams.edu/event/subject-to-change-poetry-and-conversation.

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