Poetry

National and presidential poet laureates. Iconic and emerging voices that cross cultures and experiences. Reflections on pain and resilience. Prose that provokes, soothes, and empowers. Welcome to poetry at Miami Book Fair.

Upcoming Events

November 2025

Thursday, November 20 @ 6:30 pm
The Art Lab (Building 1, First Floor, Room 1101)
300 N.E. Second Avenue (Bldg. 1, 1st floor), Miami, 33132 United States

Fuentes_Oscar

POETRY CITY: AN INVITATION TO BE PART OF MIAMI’S LITERARY SOUL – POETRY

Join us for “Poetry City: Ciudad Poesía,” an immersive performance showcasing the evolution of Miami’s poetry through a curated lineup of voices spanning decades and movements. A variety of local poets will perform alongside a live jazz trio, creating a dynamic and engaging presentation that brings the city’s literary and musical rhythms together in celebration. Co-hosted by The Biscayne Poet, Oscar Fuentes, and Nicole Tallman, poetry ambassador for the Miami-Dade County Mayor’s Office, this performance will be the grand finale to the upcoming Poetry City documentary,…

Thursday, November 20 @ 8:00 pm
Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus
300 N.E. Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132 United States

AN EVENING WITH U.S. POET LAUREATE ARTHUR SZE ON INTO THE HUSH – POETRY

Like wind on a lake, newly appointed U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze’s 12th book of poetry, Into the Hush, extends a language that ripples and stills, conjuring a cast of fruit trees and gunshots, butterflies and chemistry, animals and man. Drawing on craft honed over decades of writing, these poems earn their profound simplicity, moving with imaginative power and emotional force. Sze harnesses a range of innovative forms to respond to the challenges of our nuclear age – endangered cultures and the exigencies of climate change – exploring what it means to write on a planet struggling against the Anthropocene,…

Friday, November 21 @ 10:00 am
Room 2106 (Building 2, 1st Floor)
300 N.E. Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132 United States

Ladelle_Ebony

TEENS READ THE 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS – ALL GENRES

The 2025 National Book Award-honored authors in young people’s literature – including María Dolores Águila, K. Ancrum, Daniel Nayeri, Hannah V. Sawyerr, Maria van Lieshout, and Ibi Zoboi – visit Miami Book Fair to share from and about their books, and answer questions from Miami-Dade County students. Hosted by Ebony LaDelle, author of You’ve Got a Place Here, Too: An Anthology of Black Love Stories Set at HBCUs and This Could Be Forever. For more information and to RSVP,

Saturday, November 22 @ 10:00 am
Auditorium (Building 1, 2nd Floor, Room 1261)
300 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33132 United States

Naomi Shihab Nye

AN INVITATION TOWARD HOPE: NAOMI SHIHAB NYE & TRACY K. SMITH IN CONVERSATION – POETRY

Head down to the Fair by 9 a.m. to get free entry, a free cup of Joe and the best seats possible to see Naomi and Tracy! As an invitation toward meaning and connection, National Book Award finalist and former Young People’s Poet Laureate Naomi Shihab Nye and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith will discuss how celebrations of joy, family, and poetry in their new books are fundamental to our capacities to love,…

Saturday, November 22 @ 11:00 am
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

Caridad Moro-Gronlier

GENERATION 305: AN INTERGENERATIONAL POETRY PROJECT

Driven by her passion to nurture the connection between poetry and people, Miami-Dade County Poet Laureate Caridad Moro-Gronlier will launch Generation 305: An Intergenerational Poetry Project at Miami Book Fair. Moderated by Moro-Gronlier and Nicole Tallman, poetry ambassador for Miami-Dade County, this event will showcase Generation 305 poems written to promote, develop, and create multigenerational dialogue, as well as preserve the intergenerational stories in our community. Come listen to Generation 305 poems by selected project poets Richard Blanco,…

Saturday, November 22 @ 12:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

Rosalie Moffett

ON POETRY, PRIZES & PUBLISHING

National Poetry Series winner Keith S. Wilson, Games for Children, will be in conversation with the judge who selected his manuscript, Rosalie Moffett, Making a Living. Together they will read poems from their newest books and discuss the lifespan of a poetry collection from manuscript-in-progress to published book. They will also reveal what it’s really like to win – and judge – book prizes while balancing writing, careers, and the rest of life. Moderated by MBF’s Emerging Writer Fellow in Poetry Simone Zapata.…

Saturday, November 22 @ 1:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION PRESENTS: CELEBRATING THE 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD HONOREES FOR POETRY – POETRY

Each fall, Miami Book Fair invites the authors and translators of 50 National Book Award longlisted titles to gather in Miami following the National Book Awards Ceremony in New York. Join the honorees in poetry – Gbenga Adesina, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Cathy Linh Che, Tiana Clark, Rickey Laurentiis, Esther Lin, Natalie Shapero, Richard Siken, and Patricia Smith – as they read from and discuss their books and answer your questions about writing,…

Saturday, November 22 @ 1:00 pm
The Art Lab (Building 1, First Floor, Room 1101)
300 N.E. Second Avenue (Bldg. 1, 1st floor), Miami, 33132 United States

Helena Haywoode Henry

SURVIVING DYSTOPIA – YOUNG ADULT FICTION & POETRY

In Last Chance Live! by Helena Haywoode Henry, a teenage girl on death row competes on a reality show and must decide what forgiveness, family, and freedom mean when the stakes are literally life or death. In The L.O.V.E. Club by Lio Min, three estranged teens must survive being pulled into a video game created by their missing friend, but can they stay the course when hard truths confront them alongside the game bosses? In the genre-bending novel-in-verse,…

Saturday, November 22 @ 1:30 pm
Room 3315 (Building 3, 3rd Floor)
245 NE 4th St., Miami, 33132 United States

Leire Bilbao

XII SEMINARIO DE LITERATURA INFANTIL Y LECTURA: LIBROS PARA BORRAR FRONTERAS – CHARLA: CON UNA NUBE DE POESÍA – FICCIÓN Y POESÍA

Leire Bilbao (España) sobre lo poético como instrumento para tratar todo tipo de temas en la literatura infantil y juvenil.   EN COLABORACIÓN CON   Compra Aguas Madres – Bilbao…

Saturday, November 22 @ 2:30 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

Stine An

BILINGUALISM & BALANCE: POETRY IN TRANSLATION

Poet-translators read from their latest collections and discuss how they navigate bilingualism and balance their own creative work with the art of translation. Today’s Morning Vocabulary is renowned South Korean poet and Wit N Cynical poetry bookstore owner Yoo Heekyung’s debut collection, translated into English for the first time by Stine An. At once image-rich, lyrical, and searingly sociopolitical, Homeland of Swarms is award-winning Venezuelan poet Oriette D’Angelo’s English debut, translated from Spanish by Lupita Eyde-Tucker.…

Saturday, November 22 @ 3:15 pm
Room 8525 (Building 8, 5th Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

DESPLEGANDO EL VERSO: NOVEDADES DE POESÍA – POESÍA

Un sol caído avanza, de la venezolana María Auxiliadora Álvarez, es un recuento de la memoria y los mundos perdidos a consecuencia de la inmigración, como la familia, los amigos y la lengua. En Aguas madres, la poeta española Leire Bilbao parte de la vivencia de la maternidad para reflexionar sobre la identidad propia, su construcción y su destrucción. La argentina Mercedes Moresco llega con Pétalos negros,  una colección de poemas que responde a un estado del alma en el que todo decir sobra,…

Saturday, November 22 @ 3:30 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

Taylor Byas

THREE POETIC MUSES ON FEMINISM, FIRE & FORM – POETRY

This panel brings together three poets whose distinct voices form a harmony of female subjectivity, resilience, adaptation, and innovation around questions of art, pop culture, and globalization. Resting Bitch Face by Taylor Byas uses some of our most common ways of “watching” throughout history (painting, films, sculpture, and photographs) to explore how these mediums shape Black female subjectivity. The poems in Barbara Hamby’s Burn tango with why the world is so beautiful and terrible at the same time.…

Saturday, November 22 @ 4:30 pm
Room 8203 (Building 8, 2nd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

Ae-Hee Lee

LINEAGE, LANGUAGE & LANDSCAPE: POETRY DEBUTS – POETRY

In Black Mestiza, Yael Valencia Aldana reckons with her identity as a Caribbean Afro-Latinx/e woman with Indigenous, Black, and white roots and pays homage to the legacy, resilience, and fortitude of her ancestors as a mixed-race woman, daughter, and mother. Drawing on various languages and geographies from South Korea to Peru to the American heartland, Ae Hee Lee’s Asterism is a collection of grace and grit, the work of a mind at work – in, and on,…

Saturday, November 22 @ 6:00 pm
Auditorium (Building 1, 2nd Floor, Room 1261)
300 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33132 United States

Ruth Dickey

NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION PRESENTS: LIGHTNING ROUND WITH THE 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS – ALL GENRES

The 2025 honorees across all five National Book Award categories – including Gbenga Adesina, María Dolores Águila, K. Ancrum, Jazmina Barrera, Gabriela Cabezón CámaraGabrielle Calvocoressi, Cathy Linh Che, Susan Choi, Tiana Clark, Angela Flournoy, Caleb Gayle, Julia Ioffe,…

Sunday, November 23 @ 11:00 am
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

WHY POETRY STILL MATTERS – POETRY

During the historic dialogue between rabbis and the Dalai Lama, as told in his international bestseller The Jew in the Lotus, Rodger Kamenetz heard a penetrating question from His Holiness to the rabbis, “How does your spiritual practice purify afflictive emotions?” To Kamenetz, this seemed the most fundamental question to ask of any religion or philosophy of life. Embedded in a rich poetic narrative, Seeing into the Life of Things: Imagination and the Sacred Encounter offers down to earth practices from “count your blessings,” to savoring perception,…

Sunday, November 23 @ 12:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

Denise Duhamel

ON BEING WITH EACH OTHER – POETRY

Join poet and editor Pádraig Ó Tuama for a reading and conversation centered around 44 Poems on Being with Each Other: A Poetry Unbound Collection, an anthology that explores the beauty, complexity, and necessity of human connection. Ó Tuama, also the author of Kitchen Hymns – a tender collection that meditates on ritual, intimacy, and the sacred within the ordinary – will be joined by two acclaimed contributors: Denise Duhamel, whose new book Pink Lady: Poems is a vibrant,…

Sunday, November 23 @ 1:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

Cathy-Linh Che

FIFTY YEARS AFTER THE VIETNAM WAR – FICTION, NONFICTION & POETRY

On the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, three authors discuss the challenges of telling the stories of their parents and lovers, examining love, loss, and identity across genres and generations. Becoming Ghost documents Cathy Linh Che’s parents’ experiences as refugees who escaped the Vietnam War and then were cast as extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now, placing them at the margins of their own story. The 14 pieces in Andrew Lam’s Stories from the Edge of the Sea explore love and loss,…

Sunday, November 23 @ 2:00 pm
Room 8106 (Building 8, 1st Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132 United States

HYAM PLUTZIK AND THE MOSAIC OF TIME

HYAM PLUTZIK AND THE MOSAIC OF TIME – POETRY

Join us for a panel with three highly regarded Jewish American poets as they reflect on the life and work of midcentury poet Hyam Plutzik (1911-62), a three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize whose poetry came to fruition at a time of cultural change set against the historical rupture of the Holocaust and World War II. Rodger Kamenetz, Jacqueline Osherow, and Maxim D. Shrayer were part of a collective of 18 scholars working over a period of 15 years with editor Victoria Aarons to create  Hyam Plutzik and the Mosaic of Time – a collection of essays and selected poems.…

Sunday, November 23 @ 2:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

Michael Hettich

SILENCE & SOLACE: POETS IN THE WAKE OF GRIEF – POETRY

Written over the span of a decade, Green of All Heads is a work of formal range and emotional urgency. In the coinciding wakes of tragic loss and new motherhood, Aracelis Girmay examines the entangled temporalities of an aging parent and newly born children. In A Sharper Silence, Michael Hettich reaches into the wilds to find some measure of the eternal that might wedge itself between himself and the unthinkable: the death of his beloved. He calls upon memory as if to rewind their lives together and forestall the inevitable.…

Sunday, November 23 @ 2:00 pm
The Art Lab (Building 1, First Floor, Room 1101)
300 N.E. Second Avenue (Bldg. 1, 1st floor), Miami, 33132 United States

Maria Dolores Aguila

THE VERSE IS THE SWORD: NOVELS IN VERSE – FICTION & POETRY

These novels-in-verse speak truth into the world. Based on a true story, A Sea of Lemon Trees: The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez by Mária Dolores Águila is a vivid and uplifting middle-grade novel about one child’s courage to stand up for what is right. Told through searing free-verse, journal entries, and interspersed fill-in-the-blank poetry prompts, Truth Is by Hannah V. Sawyerr reminds readers there is always hope when a teen fights for her right to determine what happens to her body,…

Sunday, November 23 @ 3:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

THE COMPANY WE KEEP: POETRY AS WITNESS & WARNING – POETRY

Reginald Dwayne Betts is our foremost chronicler of the ways prison shapes and transforms American life. In Doggerel, he examines this subject through a more prosaic – but equally rich – lens: dogs. He reminds us that, as our lives are broken and put back together, the only witness often barks instead of talks. Doggerel is a meditation on family, falling in love, friendship, and those who accompany us on our walk through life. With My Back to the World by Victoria Chang engages with the paintings and writings of Agnes Martin,…

Sunday, November 23 @ 4:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

ZIPODES: AN INVITATION TO POETRY – POETRY

Literally Everyone Is Invited: An Ode to South Florida celebrates the 10th anniversary of the ZipOde – a playful, placed-based poetic form created in 2015 by O, Miami in partnership with WLRN. Edited by Gesi Schilling and Sarah Trudgeon and published by O, Miami, this vibrant collection features poems and photographs by 500 South Floridians. Literally Everyone Is Invited is part art book and part poetic love letter to South Florida, told by the people who live it. Moderated by Tom Hudson,…

Sunday, November 23 @ 4:30 pm
Room 8525 (Building 8, 5th Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

Falcon Paradi Aristides

NUEVOS HORIZONTES POÉTICOS – POESÍA

Arístides Falcón Paradí ofrece A la otra orilla, obra profundamente introspectiva, que refleja el vínculo eterno entre el autor y su madre. Reina María Rodríguez presenta Jigs and Lures, una antología bilingüe de su obra. En La muerte y sus ojos, Armando Suárez Cobián nos advierte sobre lo que perdemos cada vez que separamos algo de nuestra contemplación inmediata. En conversación con el poeta y periodista Germán Guerra.   Compra A la otra orilla – Falcón Paradí Compra Jigs and Lures – Rodríguez Compra La muerte y sus ojos – Suárez Cobián Compra Antología personal – Guerra…

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Past Events

November 2024

Sunday, November 24, 2024 @ 5:00 pm
Room 2106 (Building 2, 1st Floor)
300 N.E. Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132 United States

FIESTA DE POETAS: A CELEBRATION OF LATINO POETRY

Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology edited by poet and critic RIGOBERTO GONZÁLEZ gathers more than 180 poets in Spanish and English spanning from the 17th century to the present. These poems bear witness to the beauty and power of this vibrant and expanding tradition: its profound engagement with pasts both mythical and historical, its reckoning with the complexities of language, land, and identity, and its vision of a nation enriched by the stories of immigrants, exiles, refugees,…

Sunday, November 24, 2024 @ 4:30 pm
MAGIC Screening Room (Building 8, 1st Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

“CAFECITO COMPARTIDO” – PANEL

Through poetry, interviews, and images, Daniela Perez Miron’s Ventanitas: A Window into Miami’s Coffee Culture, photographed by GESI SCHILLING, celebrates the lives of the people who gather at the city’s coffee windows for conversation and human connection. Joining Schilling are contributors EILEEN ANDRADE, CARLOS FRÍAS, TERE ESTORINO, and MIKE ROMEU; moderated by MELODY SANTIAGO CUMMINGS, executive director of O, Miami.   SPONSORED BY Buy Ventanitas: A Window into Miami’s Coffee Culture…

Sunday, November 24, 2024 @ 4:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

HARD-WON HOLINESS: A READING & CONVERSATION WITH JESSICA JACOBS & AVA NATHANIEL WINTER

Join us for a discussion on the tender and difficult poetry found between religious traditions, queer desire, Jewish transfemininity, cultural histories, and the ethical knots of sacred texts. Structured around the 12 parshiyot (portions) of Genesis, JESSICA JACOBS’ unalone parallels immersion in Jewish teachings with the contemporary world and the author’s experiences growing up queer, embracing one’s sexuality, reversing roles as the adult child of aging parents, and other imposed roles of womanhood. In Transgenesis, AVA NATHANIEL WINTER challenges concepts of the beautiful and the sacred,…

Sunday, November 24, 2024 @ 3:30 pm
Room 8503 (Building 8, 5th Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132 United States

NUEVA POESÍA DESDE EL 305

LIZETTE ESPINOSA ofrece un volumen desgarrador que ha sido escrito con la pasión y la frialdad de quien conoce los retos de la existencia; GERMÁN GUERRA presenta su Antología personal 1998-2018 con los textos más representativos de más de un cuarto de siglo de labor poética y seis poemas inéditos hasta la fecha; CARLOS PINTADO llega con una obra donde un sutil tapiz de música impregna la historia y la cinematografía de cada poema. En conversación con la escritora y actriz ROSIE INGUANZO.…

Sunday, November 24, 2024 @ 3:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

RUPTURE & REPAIR: POETRY OF DISPLACEMENT & TRANSFORMATION

ARMEN DAVOUDIAN’s The Palace of Forty Pillars tells the story of a self estranged from the world around him as a gay adolescent, an Armenian in Iran, and an immigrant in America in order to recreate, in art’s reflection, the image of a lost home. SARETTA MORGAN opens Alt-Nature to the desert as a practice of sensuality in which landscapes and Black queer social ecologies illuminate an anti-map of being and becoming along meridians of environmental degradation,…

Sunday, November 24, 2024 @ 2:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

THREE POETS LAUREATE IN CONVERSATION

Join us for a poetry reading and conversation on the role of the localized poet laureate in service to the community. DIANNELY ANTIGUA (Portsmouth, New Hampshire) grapples with the body as a site of pain and trauma in Good Monster, chronicling her reckoning with shame, her fallout with faith, and the desire to feel pleasure in an inhospitable body. Love Prodigal by TRACI BRIMHALL (Kansas) lives in the dishevelment of starting over from a divorce and a new diagnosis,…

Sunday, November 24, 2024 @ 1:00 pm
Room 8203 (Building 8, 2nd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

A MESSY SURVIVAL, A REPRISE OF JOY: THE CRAFT OF POETRY

Miami Book Fair’s own inaugural Emerging Writer Fellow in Poetry GABRIEL RAMIREZ (2021) returns to the Magic City with his debut poetry collection, If Pit Bulls Had a God, It’d Be a Pit Bull, which examines how violent prejudices can be met with and redirected by a holy tenderness. After two years of artistic silence, Bluff is DANEZ SMITH’s powerful reckoning with their role and responsibility as a poet in the wake of the pandemic and protest following the murder of George Floyd in their hometown of the Twin Cities.…

Sunday, November 24, 2024 @ 12:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

SELFHOOD, SPACE & THE DEEP COMPASSION OF POETRY

The poems in Bound by JUBI ARRIOLA-HEADLEY seek to carve a space in the world for Blackness and queerness that isn’t defined by trauma or lack, where Black and queer folks can create and conjure the worlds they want to live and love in. In Mammal: Sacrifice Is Not a Virtue, ANA MARÍA CABALLERO examines how one’s desire to view the self as in control opposes one’s many emotional hungers and the animalistic need for survival. Buy Bound – Arriola-Headley Buy Mammal: Sacrifice Is Not a Virtue – Caballero  …

Sunday, November 24, 2024 @ 11:00 am
Auditorium (Building 1, 2nd Floor, Room 1261)
300 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33132 United States

A U.S. POET LAUREATE IN CONVERSATION: ROBERT PINSKY

Former U.S. Poet Laureate ROBERT PINSKY reads from his latest book and discusses the role of poetry in the community. In Proverbs of Limbo, he mines and maps limbal regions both demographic and personal – clashing ways of understanding, personal history and world history, health and illness, freedom and compulsion, intimacy and community, personality and culture – and all the countless variations of in-between. Moderated by poet CAMPBELL MCGRATH. Buy Fever of Unknown Origin: Poems – McGrath Buy Proverbs of Limbo  – Pinsky…

Sunday, November 24, 2024 @ 11:00 am
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

THE ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS CELEBRATES 90 YEARS OF POETRY

Join the Academy of American Poets for a 90th anniversary reading and conversation featuring JOY CASTRO and CARLIE HOFFMAN, highlighting questions of national identity, migration, displacement, and belonging. Castro offers readers an intimate glimpse into the history of early 20th-century Cuban émigré society in Key West through Tears and Flowers: A Poet of Migration in Old Key West, a bilingual edition of Feliciano Castro’s poetry. Hoffman’s When There Was Light maps out a topography across Eastern Europe and America where global movements of diaspora and war live alongside personal reckonings,…

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 6:00 pm
Room 8203 (Building 8, 2nd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

KATHIE KLARREICH ON DON’T SHAKE THE SPOON: A JOURNAL OF PRISON WRITING – PANEL

KATHIE KLARREICH founded the Miami-based prison writing nonprofit Exchange for Change in 2014, after a 24-year career as a journalist. Don’t Shake the Spoon: A Journal of Prison Writing is a collection of Exchange for Change students’ stories, poems, and essays. Joining Klarreich are contributors to the anthology, JORGE CUESTA, WENDY HINSHAW, and MARIE PETIT-LOUIS.…

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 5:30 pm
Auditorium (Building 1, 2nd Floor, Room 1261)
300 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33132 United States

THE NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION PRESENTS AN EVENING WITH THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS

Join us to celebrate 75 years of the National Book Awards and be a part of Team Book history! For more than a decade, the Miami Book Fair and National Book Foundation have joined together to present the biggest in-person showcase of National Book Award honorees anywhere in the country. 2024 honored authors across all five National Book Award categories (Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature) will share rapid-fire readings from their recognized works and be interviewed by the National Book Foundation’s executive director,…

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 4:30 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

THE POEM WITHIN THE POEM: A BILINGUAL READING

Venezuelan poet NIDIA HERNÁNDEZ bridges the gulf between her two countries in The Farewell Light,leaping effortlessly between the natural world and meditations on culture, family, language, and longing. Translator-poet FARID MATUK presents The Hormone of Darkness, curated from Peruvian poet and multimedia artist Tilsa Otta’s body of work – in which a queer Latinx person who has lived through iterations of authoritarian rule answers these conditions by doubling down on a life force that precedes and exceeds notions of the poetic.…

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 3:30 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

MENDING THE RIFT: A POETICS OF HEALING

JENNIFER MARITZA MCCAULEY’s Kinds of Grace: Poems explores the complicated facets of Blackness and Afro-Latinidad, mental health issues, womanhood, and the power of healing racial wounds. The Blue Mimes: Poems by SARA DANIELE RIVERA investigates catastrophic grief – from the pandemic to the present, from Albuquerque to Lima to Havana, between the rifts in communion that afford the possibility to heal. EMILY JUNGMIN YOON’s Find Me as the Creature I Am: Poems holds up a mirror to humanity to show that we are animals,…

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 2:45 pm
Room 8525 (Building 8, 5th Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

EL PULSO DE LAS PALABRAS: NOVEDADES DE POESÍA

La poeta nacida en Uruguay SILVIA GOLDMAN presenta Lo que se hereda es la orfandad. Las venezolanas NIDIA HERNÁNDEZ y JHANAYRA MANZANO llegan con el poemario bilingüe Farewell Light y el volumen La sombra del cuervo, respectivamente. Las autoras conversarán con el poeta cubano ORLANDO GONZÁLEZ ESTEVA. Compra The Farewell Light – Hernandez Compra La sombra del cuervo – Manzano…

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 2:30 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

KWAME ALEXANDER ON THIS IS THE HONEY & WHY FATHERS CRY AT NIGHT – NONFICTION

Join KWAME ALEXANDER – poet, educator, publisher, Emmy Award-winning producer, and No. 1 New York Times bestselling author of 40 books – as he reads from and discusses his two most recent projects. This is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets is a breathtaking poetry collection on hope, heart, and heritage from the most prominent and promising Black poets and writers of our time. Why Fathers Cry at Night: A Memoir in Love Poems, Letters, Recipes, and Remembrances is an intimate and nontraditional (or “new-fashioned”) memoir featuring poetry,…

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 2:00 pm
Room 8302 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

“CARIBBEAN NARRATIVES: HISTORY, HEROES & HEALING” – PANEL

DIANNELY ANTIGUA’s Good Monster presents a raw and innovative poetry collection that navigates themes of trauma, chronic pain, and mental illness. MERLE COLLINS’ Ocean Stirrings: A Work of Fiction in Tribute to Louise Langdon Norton Little, Working Mother and Activist, Mother of Malcolm X and Seven Siblings offers a poetic exploration of Little’s life, intertwining historical narrative with the power of imagination to illuminate a figure often overshadowed by her famous son. GEOFFREY PHILP’s graphic novel My Name is Marcus introduces readers to Marcus Garvey,…

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 1:30 pm
Auditorium (Building 1, 2nd Floor, Room 1261)
300 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33132 United States

A U.S. POET LAUREATE IN CONVERSATION: BILLY COLLINS

Former U.S. Poet Laureate BILLY COLLINS reads from his latest book and discusses the role of poetry in the community. In Water, Water, he combines his vigilant attention and respect for the peripheral to create moments of delight and capture the beauties and ironies of everyday experience in 60 new poems. Moderated by ROBERT CASPER, head of poetry and literature at the Library of Congress. Buy Water, Water: Poems – Collins…

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 1:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

CELEBRATING THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NOMINEES FOR POETRY

The National Book Foundation’s National Book Awards recognizes some of the most outstanding poetry collections published in the U.S. each year. Join us for a special discussion featuring this year’s nominees. Moderated by RUTH DICKEY, executive director of the National Book Foundation. Buy Silver: Poems – Phillips Buy The Book of Wounded Sparrows: Poems – Quintanilla Buy mother – RedCherries Buy Liontaming in America – Willis    …

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 1:00 pm
The Art Lab (Building 1, First Floor, Room 1101)
300 N.E. Second Avenue (Bldg. 1, 1st floor), Miami, 33132 United States

“OLD ROOTS & NEW STEMS: GROWING INTO A YOUNG ADULT” – FICTION

Like a tree growing from concrete, these three stories celebrate resilience in the face of adversity that comes with growing up. In NADINE PINEDE’s poignant novel-in-verse When the Mapou Sings, teenage Lucille’s life is uprooted by sudden changes and the disappearance of a friend, but she finds strength and guidance in her roots – the Haitian mapou trees. In SAMUEL TEER and MAR JULIA’s graphic novel Brownstone, a young woman grapples with her identity in a neighborhood that thinks,…

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 12:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

MARIE HOWE ON NEW AND SELECTED POEMS

MARIE HOWE’s poetry transforms penetrating observations of everyday life into sacred, humane miracles. New and Selected Poems is an essential volume that draws from each of her four previous collections – including What the Living Do, a haunting archive of personal loss, and the National Book Award-longlistedMagdalene, a spiritual and sensual exploration of contemporary womanhood – and contains 20 new poems. Whether speaking in the voice of the goddess Persephone or musing on aging, Howe is “a light-bearer,…

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 11:45 am
Room 8503 (Building 8, 5th Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132 United States

PRESENTACIÓN DE VOZ CAUTIVA, DE LA POETA Y ACTUAL PRESA POLÍTICA MARÍA CRISTINA GARRIDO

La poeta cubana MARÍA CRISTINA GARRIDO sufre actualmente una condena de 7 años en prisiones cubanas por manifestarse pacíficamente el 11 de julio de 2021, en su pueblo, pidiendo “libertad” para Cuba. Su hermana presenta una colección de poemas escritos sin el permiso de sus carceleros, increíblemente libres y llenos de claridad y calidad, que están enumerados llevando el conteo del día de encarcelamiento en que cada texto fue escrito, y que dieron el salto desde el abismo del calabozo y la impuesta muerte social,…

Saturday, November 23, 2024 @ 11:00 am
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

“THE PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE OF FLORIDA: A POETRY READING” – PANEL

In All the Places We Love Have Been Left in Ruins, ARIEL FRANCISCO mourns a Miami already ruined by climate change and development, and weaves an elegy to a city in existential limbo. JEN KARETNICK’s Inheritance with a High Error Rate considers how the Floridian landscape itself is both mind and body, bearing witness to catastrophe, endurance, and the many ways we nourish hope like a habit. The Winter Dance Party: Poems, 1983-2023 spans DAVID KIRBY’s career,…

Friday, November 22, 2024 @ 7:00 pm
Room 2106 (Building 2, 1st Floor)
300 N.E. Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132 United States

NOCHE DE POESÍA: HOMENAJE A RUBÍ ARANA

Presentación del libro Agua sagrada, de RUBÍ ARANA en su versión bilingüe, con el cual se dará un homenaje póstumo a su vida y obra. Con la participación de escritores cercanos a la poeta nicaragüense que compartirán sus poemas y anécdotas más preciadas, entre ellos LIDIA CARABALLO, BEATRIZ MENDOZA CORTISSOZ, ALEJANDRA FERRAZZA, KELLY MARTINEZ GRANDALL, GLORIA MILÁDELAROCA, DANILO LÓPEZ ROMÁN, STACEY ALBA SKAR-HAWKINS,…

Friday, November 22, 2024 @ 10:00 am
Room 2106 (Building 2, 1st Floor)
300 N.E. Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132 United States

MIAMI BOOK FAIR & THE NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION PRESENT THE 2024 TEENS READ: NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS

The 2024 National Book Award-honored authors in Young People’s Literature visit Miami Book Fair to share more about their books and answer questions from Miami-Dade County’s middle and high school students acting as journalists. Hosted by JOHNNIE CHRISTMAS, authors include OLIVIA A. COLE, JOSH GALARZA, ERIN ENTRADA KELLY, ANGELA SHANTÉ, and ALI TERESE! For more information and to RSVP, contact Rachel Gil de Gibaja at rgildegi@mdc.edu.…

Thursday, November 21, 2024 @ 11:00 am
Mad Arts
481 S. Federal Hwy., Dania Beach, FL 33004 United States

LIT ENCOUNTERS BY THE VERSE VERSE

Celebrating Latino Poetry: The Library of America’s Anthology with special programming during Miami Book Fair week, Lit Encounters is a special exhibition presented by MAD ARTS in partnership with digital poetry gallery THEVERSEVERSE that brings one of humanity’s most enduring forms of expression into the museum space as the main event! Gathering writers, visual artists, and code poets, the exhibition reimagines the bounds of how poetry is experienced via a multiplicity of mediums and technologies,…

November 2023

Sunday, November 19, 2023 @ 4:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

SWEET WORLD: A TRIBUTE TO MAUREEN SEATON

This reading honors the life and work of award-winning poet, professor, and LGBTQ+ activist Maureen Seaton (October 20, 1947 – August 26, 2023), author of more than two dozen solo and collaborative books, who touched the lives of so many in Miami and beyond through her poetry, teaching, and kindness. Hosted by poets DENISE DUHAMEL and NICOLE TALLMAN, this tribute gathers a group of local poets to read their favorite poems from Seaton’s expansive collection in memory and celebration of her remarkable literary accomplishments.…

Sunday, November 19, 2023 @ 4:00 pm
Room 8302 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

VOICES OF JAMAICA: EXPLORING RACE, IDENTITY & MEMORY

Three distinct Jamaican voices, each contributing unique perspectives on race, identity, and memory. GEOFFREY PHILP creates powerful verse in Archipelagos that reflects the struggles of the Caribbean in a world facing global disasters and societal inequities. DALE MAHFOOD’s When Trees Fall: Book One of the Wood and Water Saga delves into secrets, love, and the quest for paternal approval against the backdrop of historical political change in Jamaica. And SAFIYA SINCLAIR‘s How to Say Babylon: A Memoir provides a profound exploration of Jamaican identity in a shifting cultural and social landscape.…

Sunday, November 19, 2023 @ 3:30 pm
Auditorium (Building 1, 2nd Floor, Room 1261)
300 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33132 United States

ON FAME & FRIENDSHIP: A POETRY READING & CONVERSATION WITH RICHARD BLANCO & CAMPBELL MCGRATH

Join us for a special conversation with Miami-Dade County Poet Laureate RICHARD BLANCO and his friend, mentor, and MacArthur “Genius” Fellow CAMPBELL MCGRATH. In Homeland of My Body: New & Selected Poems, Blanco has collected more than 100 poems from his previous books that represent his evolution as a writer grappling with identity, love, the idea of “home,” and ultimately art itself. McGrath’s Fever of Unknown Origin: Poems considers the intersection of history, beauty, and destruction,…

Sunday, November 19, 2023 @ 3:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

THE BODY KEEPS SCORE: THREE POETS ON SCARS, SENSUALITY & SELFHOOD

In Standing in the Forest of Being Alive, KATIE FARRIS questions and praises the body even as it deteriorates in a gut-wrenching battle with cancer, affirming sensuality despite physical scars. JANINE JOSEPH’s Decade of the Brain: Poems articulates the strangeness of living in relation to other past and simultaneous selves changed by injury, intimacy, notions of citizenship, and nation. BRIAN TURNER’s unique trilogy – The Wild Delight of Wild Things, The Goodbye World Poem,…

Sunday, November 19, 2023 @ 2:45 pm
Room 8525 (Building 8, 5th Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

LITERATURA SIN CORSET

ENA COLUMBIÉ presenta una selección exquisita de sus cuentos, ALEJANDRO ROBLES llega con un volumen de microrrelatos sobre la figura del dragón, y LENA YAU ofrece una colección de poemas que parten de un sabor, un olor o un espacio. Los autores conversarán con el poeta, periodista y editor GERMÁN GUERRA. Compra Cabrón. – Columbié Compra Gabinete de dragones. – Robles Compra Trae tu espalda para hacer mi mesa. – Yau Compra Hormigas en la lengua.…

Sunday, November 19, 2023 @ 2:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

THREE POETS TURN THE TIDE ON GEOGRAPHY & IDENTITY

RACHEL DEWOSKIN’s absolute animal finds sense amid disorder and unearths connections between the animal and the human, the ancient and the contemporary, inviting us to consider what holds life, what lasts, and what defines and enriches the experience of being human. In Romantic Comedy, JAMES ALLEN HALL creates liberatory narratives, whether grieving a father’s death, documenting the survival of sexual assault, interrogating the scripts of addiction, or revisiting a 1980s crime thriller. Formally and acoustically attuned,…

Sunday, November 19, 2023 @ 1:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

REFLECTION & REVISITATION: A READING & CONVERSATION WITH TWO POETS

Razzle Dazzle: New and Selected Poems 2002-2022 traces the evolution of MAJOR JACKSON’s transformative imagination and fierce music through five acclaimed volumes across two decades of writing. This collection offers a sustained portrait of a poet “bound up in the ecstatic,” whose buoyant lyricism confronts the social and political forces that would demean humanity. In August 2014, Michael Brown – a young, unarmed Black man – was shot to death by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. What followed was a period of protests and turmoil,…

Sunday, November 19, 2023 @ 12:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

SPEAK UP PRESENTS MATURE ORIGINS: A CONVERSATION ON POETRY WITH YOUTH POETS LAUREATE SATURN BROWNE & EVAN WANG

Join Connecticut Youth Poet Laureate and author of Bloodpaths SATURN BROWNE and Montgomery County Youth Poet Laureate EVAN WANG for a reading and conversation, moderated by South Florida Youth Poet Ambassador and Speak Up Student Ambassador CAITLIN VILLACRUSIS, on sharpening one’s craft within the teen poetry community, developing the individual voice in contest cycles, and succeeding publicly while failing privately. Speak Up, a free, year-round creative writing workshop series for teens ages 13-19, is a program of Miami Book Fair.…

Sunday, November 19, 2023 @ 11:00 am
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

YOU’VE GOT A TICKET TO RIDE: A READING WITH THREE POETS

In Two Open Doors in a Field, a profusion of sonnets rises from SOPHIE KLAHR’s bond with Nebraska and the experience of driving thousands of miles alone while listening to the radio, where unexpected landscapes make listening to the unexpected more acute. NICOLE TALLMAN’s Poems for the People and Fersace are both a refreshing and honest Michigan-meets-Miami handling of hard topics that adjust to the changing world around her, seeking solace in conversations with the dead and living (including herself),…

Saturday, November 18, 2023 @ 6:00 pm
Auditorium (Building 1, 2nd Floor, Room 1261)
300 NE 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33132 United States

THE NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION PRESENTS AN EVENING WITH THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS

A special event featuring many of this year’s honorees, including NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAH, AALIYAH BILAL, ERIN BOW, KENNETH M. CADOW, OLIVER DE LA PAZ, ELIOT DUNCAN, JONATHAN EIG, CRISTINA RIVERA GARZA, HUDA FAHMY, STÊNIO GARDEL, ANNELYSE GELMAN, VASHTI HARRISONTANIA JAMES,

Saturday, November 18, 2023 @ 4:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

REFRAMING THE PORTRAIT OF THE POET

MAHOGANY L. BROWNE’s Chrome Valley: Poems offers an intricate portrait of Black womanhood in America, capturing the pleasures and pangs of young love and motherhood, and reveling in the beauty of the undaunted self-determination passed down from Black woman to Black woman. The poems in CHEN CHEN’s Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency: Poems a acknowledge and name the persistent threat of violence, while also reminding its reader of joys both small and large: West Texas sunsets,…

Saturday, November 18, 2023 @ 3:00 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

AN INVITATION TO POETRY: SPEAK UP PRESENTS A READING & CONVERSATION WITH RUDY FRANCISCO

In Excuse Me As I Kiss The Sky, RUDY FRANCISCO explores poetic forms such as the contrapuntal, golden shovel, and the ode to inspire readers, expose them to different avenues of approaching the act of writing poetry, and invite them to try it for themselves. Moderated by South Florida Youth Poet Ambassador and Speak Up Student Ambassador CAITLIN VILLACRUSIS. Buy Excuse Me As I Kiss The Sky. – Francisco  …

Saturday, November 18, 2023 @ 2:15 pm
Room 8503 (Building 8, 5th Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132 United States

LO NUEVO DE CRISTINA RIVERA GARZA

La autora, traductora y crítica mexicana CRISTINA RIVERA GARZA presenta sus nuevas obras: El invencible verano de Liliana, una crónica sobre el femicidio de su hermana; Turbar la quietud. Gestos subversivos entre fronteras, obra editada junto a GISELA HEFFES acerca del trabajo de autoras de habla hispana, y Me llamo cuerpo que no está, un volumen con su poesía reunida. Rivera Garza y Heffes conversarán con el periodista ÓSCAR MOLINA V., primer participante del Miami Book Fair Emerging Writer Fellowships Program en español.…

Saturday, November 18, 2023 @ 1:30 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

CELEBRATING THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NOMINEES FOR POETRY

A special event with OLIVER DE LA PAZ, The Diaspora Sonnets; ANNELYSE GELMAN, Vexations; JOSÉ OLIVAREZ, Promises of Gold; PAISLEY REKDAL, West: A Translation; CHARIF SHANAHAN, Trace Evidence: Poems; EVIE SHOCKLEY, suddenly we; and MONICA YOUN, From From: Poems; moderating is RUTH DICKEY, National Book Foundation executive director. Buy The Diaspora Sonnets. – De La Paz Buy Vexations.…

Saturday, November 18, 2023 @ 12:30 pm
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

MICROCOSMS OF HISTORY: A READING & CONVERSATION WITH FOUR DEBUT POETS

Fire Index: Poems by BETHANY BREITLAND measures the interior life of a survivor against the world she creates through her own fractured marriage, motherhood, and religion, reckoning with her complicit, and often dishonest life to demand her full attention, forgiveness, and responsibility. Drawing its title from the 1863 federal act that banished the Dakota people from their homelands, Removal Acts: Poems by ERIN MARIE LYNCH reckons with the present-day repercussions of historical violence, assembling an intimate record of recovery from bulimia and insisting that self-erasure cannot be separated from the erasures of genocide.…

Saturday, November 18, 2023 @ 11:30 am
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

FINELY OBSERVED, PRECISELY FELT: A READING BY FOUR FLORIDA POETS

In her 14th poetry collection, Homelight: Poems, LOLA HASKINS remembers poets who preceded her, from Sappho to Blake to Merwin, before turning to the arrogance of the way we treat the planet and each other, and finally considering death in the form of tributes to lost friends and her own preparations to follow them. In The Halo of Bees: New & Selected Poems 1990-2022, MICHAEL HETTICH presents selections from more than two dozen books spanning five decades,…

Saturday, November 18, 2023 @ 10:30 am
Room 8303 (Building 8, 3rd Floor)
300 NE Second Ave., Miami, Fl 33132 United States

SO YOU WANT TO START A LITERARY PUBLICATION: A ROUNDTABLE WITH EDITORS & WRITERS

Join four Florida-rooted editors and writers for an industry talk about how to take any community-centered literary project – anthology, creative arts publication, food culture, and more – from start to finish. Featuring DUSTIN BROOKSHIRE, Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology co-editor; GRAZIE SOPHIA CHRISTIE and GINEVRA LILY DAVIS, The Miami Native co-editors; SUANAY HERNANDEZ, UndrBelly editor; and JASMINE RESPESS, Islandia Journal literary editor.…

Wednesday, November 15, 2023 @ 7:00 pm
Room 2106 (Building 2, 1st Floor)
300 N.E. Second Ave., Miami, FL 33132 United States

UN BRINDIS PARA PRESENTAR LUGAR COMÚN-ALLITERATION

Una conversación entre la poeta BETTSIMAR DÍAZ, el escritor y poeta LEONARDO PADRÓN, el escritor CAMILO PINO y el editor GARCILASO PUMAR presentando la nueva propuesta cultural de Miami Beach.…

Sunday, November 12, 2023 @ 5:00 pm
The Art Lab (Building 1, First Floor, Room 1101)
300 N.E. Second Avenue (Bldg. 1, 1st floor), Miami, 33132 United States

POESÍA PARA LOS 40 DE LA FERIA

La Feria reúne a LOURDES VÁZQUEZ, LEGNA RODRÍGUEZ IGLESIAS, ONEYDA GONZÁLEZ, y ROSIE INGUANZO, un grupo de poetas que nos han acompañado a lo largo de los años, tres de ellos galardonados con el Premio Paz, en una lectura de celebración coordinada por CARLOS PINTADO.…

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