YOUR SILENCE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU! – THE WRITING OF AUDRE LORDE

HUMANITIES NEW YORK READING PROGRAM

Who Said It Was Simple: Getting to know Audre Lorde through her work.

A HNY sponsored series of 4 virtual workshops with Staten Island poets, Fern Metcalf and M.A. Dennis will examine the life Audre Lorde lived. The group will use Audre Lorde’s work to explore themes of power, survival and creativity, examining her work in pieces in order to provide a glimpse into the totality of her being.

Please register for all 4 sessions at info@aliceausten.org. Readings provided upon registration.

Fern Metcalf is a poet and photographer. Fern was invited as a panel member and honoree for “Women in the Arts” by the Staten Island Women’s Political Caucus. She has had two solo photography exhibitions, “Cuba! …and its magic” at the Spotlight Gallery, Wagner College Campus and most recently, “We The People: Black Indians in America” at Snug Harbor Newhouse Center. Reviews of her work has been featured in Huffington Post and the Staten Island Advance. She has participated in writing workshops in NYC, namely Cave Canem and Poets House.  Her writing has appeared in the Staten Island Creative Community Quarterly Journal 2018 and she produced and edited “Kinky Reggae” a zine for ETG Café.  She is currently working on a manuscript poetry that focuses on her photo exhibit and research about Black Indians in America and her own Chickasaw heritage entitled “Diggin’ Up Stuff In The Cornfield.”

M.A. Dennis is an essential writer, and an accomplished spoken word artist. He is the author of a poem published by The New York Times, and an award-winning essay based on his Daily News guest columnist editorial. The former Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam Finalist featured at the Brooklyn Book Festival’s Audre Lorde Reading and his work has appeared in numerous print and online outlets. M. A. holds a B.A. in Journalism from St. John’s University and will soon release his new chapbook, MISTAKEN IDENTITY CRISIS (NYSAI Press). Dennisis also the former Editor of Voices of Fortune, a quarterly social justice journal for burgeoning writers, and he’s facilitated multiple writing workshops for the Urban Justice Center; he also served as longtime host of the National Writers Union Open Mic at the New York Public Library. M. A. Dennis resides in Staten Island (and his home is near where a “powerful and dangerous” woman once lived).