UPDATED: This January session of the Wilde Reading Series, featuring Yvette Neisser and Pantea Tofangchi, has been re-scheduled for the evening of Tuesday, January 30th at 7 p.m.
HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the January edition of the Wilde Readings Series, with Yvette Neisser and Pantea Tofangchi, hosted by Linda Joy Burke. Join us at the Columbia Art Center on Tuesday, January 30th at 7 p.m., at 6100 Foreland Garth, Columbia, MD 21045. Please spread the word— bring your friends, family and students! Light refreshments will be served and books by the readers available for sale.
An open mic follows the featured authors and we encourage you to participate. Please prepare no more than five minutes of performance time, about two poems. Sign up when you arrive, or in advance by calling the Columbia Arts Center at (410)-730-0075.
Below, get to know Yvette and Pantea!
Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?
Yvette: My father. He died young, so I have written many poems processing his loss.
Pantea: Me and my family.
Where is your favorite place to write?
Yvette: In my bedroom, before dawn.
Pantea: My desk.
Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?
Yvette: Nothing consistent, though I often write first thing when I wake up, with a cup of tea.
Pantea: I pick a book of poems and read a few poems and then write! Or look at paintings.
Who always gets a first read?
Yvette: Depends on the poem, the subject. If I’m excited about a first draft, I share it with someone who I think would appreciate it–this might be my partner, a good friend, a fellow poet, or my mom.
Pantea: My husband.
What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?
Yvette: I’m not sure if I’ve read anything more than twice. Certainly I’ve read several of Pablo Neruda’s works at least twice: Twenty Love Poems, The Captain’s Verses, and Heights of Macchu Picchu, and will probably read them again. I also just read Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain for a second time and would read it again.
Pantea: The Little Prince. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Baron in the Trees. Sharabe Khaam (The Raw Wine). Another Birth (a collection of poems by Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad).
What is the most memorable reading you have attended?
Yvette: The most magical for me were the Dodge Poetry Festival readings (in NJ) that I attended as a young poet— especially Lucille Clifton, who read in the early morning in a small cabin, with people seated all over the floor.
Pantea: Ivy Book Store, Judith Krummeck reading from her book in conversation with Dan Rodricks.
• Yvette Neisser is the author of two poetry collections, Iron Into Flower (2022) and Grip (2011 Gival Press Poetry Award). Her translations from Spanish include South Pole/Polo Sur by María Teresa Ogliastri and Difficult Beauty: Selected Poems by Luis Alberto Ambroggio.
Founder of the DC-Area Literary Translators Network, she has taught writing at The George Washington University, The Writer’s Center, and elsewhere. By day, she works in international development. You can find her online at yvetteneisser.net.
• Pantea Amin Tofangchi is an Iranian-American poet, writer, and graphic designer. She writes poems (in English), essays, stories and plays (mostly in Persian). Her work has been published in Ploughshares, Little Patuxent Review, Welter, Atlanta Review—in which she won the International Merit Award—and other journals. She was selected as a finalist for The National Poetry Series’ 2016 and Georgia Poetry Prize 2018. Her latest book, Glazed With War, is a poetic memoir about growing up in Iran.
You can learn more about Pantea’s writing at panteatofangchi.com, and find her graphic design portfolio at panteaat.myportfolio.com.
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