Past Events

National Poetry Month Townsend Center Presents: Ocean Vuong in conversation with Cathy Park Hong Avenali Lecture Thursday, Apr 4, 2024 5:00 pm | BAMPFA Poetry Reading Friday, Apr 5, 2024 5:00 pm | BAMPFA Co-sponsored by the Arts Research Center

Presented by the Townsend Center for the Humanities in partnership with BAMPFA, co-sponsored by ARC.

Ocean Vuong, poet, MacArthur Fellow, and author of the celebrated novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, is the 2023-24...

Writing Workshop Maōri Poet Robert Sullivan September 20, 2023 1 p.m. Online

Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi and Kāi Tahu) has won awards for his poetry, editing, and writing for children, including the 2022 Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for a distinguished contribution to New Zealand poetry, Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Hawai’i, the Montana New Zealand Book Award for co-editing Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English, the Māori Literature Award for co-editing Puna Wai Kōrero: An Anthology of Māori Poetry...

Maziar Maghsoodnia Poetry Fund 2023 Reading Featuring Solmaz Sharif September 13, 2023 4 p.m. David Brower Center, Tamalpais Room Solmaz Sharif will give the 2023 Maziar Maghsoodnia Memorial Fund Reading. She will be in conversation with Lubna Safi, an...

Claudia Rankine & Pamela Sneed November 8, 2023 6 p.m. Maude Fife Room (315 Wheeler Hall)

In Citizen. An American Lyric, poet, playwright and MacArthur fellow Claudia Rankine writes: “This would be your fatal flaw–your memory, vessel of feelings …” The accumulation of everyday violence and racism forms heavy memories that make it difficult to imagine a present and future different from the past.

In Funeral Diva, poet and visual artist Pamela Sneed laments surviving the AIDS crisis in NYC as a Black lesbian. While grieving the friends she lost, Sneed also...