HoCoPoLitSo welcomes all to the April edition of the Wilde Readings Series, with Nancy Naomi Carlson and Esperanza Hope Snyder, hosted by Ann Bracken. Join us at the Columbia Art Center on Tuesday, April 9th 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 Nancy and Esperanza!

Who is the person in your life (past or present) that shows up most often in your writing?

Nancy: This is a great question! I’d have to say “me,” from my past and present life, as my work is deeply personal. It would be lovely to have the “me” from any past lives show up, but that would be an answer to a very different question.

Esperanza: Growing up in Bogotá I spent a great deal of time with my grandfather. He taught me about poetry. Memorizing poems and reciting them was our favorite pastime. My grandfather shows up a great deal in my writing because he was the first person who introduced me to the literary world. I feel he inspired me to pursue writing.

Where is your favorite place to write?

Nancy: I’m not one who can write or translate under a tree on a perfect spring day, nor can I write by a pool or lake. I can’t write “on demand” in a workshop or at a residency. Actually the only place I seem to be able to write is seated at my desk in my study (where I am right now), with everything I need at my fingertips. Even the necessary snacks.

Esperanza: I enjoy writing in my study, surrounded by my favorite books and photographs. It’s the space where I get the greatest inspiration for my work.

Do you have any consistent pre-writing rituals?

Nancy: Absolutely. I usually have to engage in a lot of pre-writing thinking, jotting down ideas (an image or thought; a possible title; a repeating line for a villanelle; a quote from a philosopher or writer, preferably French) on yellow stickies. This process can take days or weeks. I also pick up the pace of my journal reading, choosing ones that particularly inspire me, like The Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, APR, hoping to find the “missing link” that connects the many ideas in my head and on the yellow stickies. Typically the inspiration comes (or doesn’t) on a Friday night, when I go to my computer with hardly any expectations, armed only with chocolate and chips. Invariably, after several hours, a new poem starts to take shape.

Esperanza: My pre-writing ritual includes journaling, meditation and drinking coffee.

Who always gets a first read?

Nancy: One editor/friend of mine has seen the first draft of almost every poem I’ve written for over a decade. (I don’t show him my translations, as I know if they’re “there” or not.)

Esperanza: When I feel the piece I’m working on is ready to be shared and I want feedback, if it’s a poem, I send it to a poet with whom I work closely. If it’s prose, I send it to my editor.

What is a book you’ve read more than twice (and would read again)?

Nancy: Although I watch the same movies again and again, I don’t tend to re-read books, as there are so many I haven’t read yet.

Esperanza: I’m currently reading Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey, and I would read it again. It’s wonderful. In graduate school I fell in love with Don Quixote and have often returned to Cervantes’s masterpiece. I’ve also read Jack Gilbert’s poetry book, Refusing Heaven, several times.

What is the most memorable reading you have attended?

Nancy: When I was in Calcutta conducting a master class in translation at the Seagull School of Publishing, I had the extreme pleasure of attending a reading by Palestinian poet Ghassan Zaqtan and his translator. His reading was electric.

Esperanza: Due to my connection with the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, I’ve been fortunate to attend many memorable readings. Ilya Kaminsky‘s poetry reading was one of them. Additionally, I’ll never forget Stanley Plumly‘s reading of his poem, “Cancer”.

• Nancy Naomi Carlson‘s translation of Khal Torabully’s Cargo Hold of Stars: Coolitude (Seagull Books, 2021) won the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. Delicates (Seagull Books, 2023), her co-translation of Wendy Guerra with Esperanza Hope Snyder, was noted in The New York Times, as was An Infusion of Violets (Seagull, 2019), her second full-length poetry collection. Piano in the Dark (Seagull Books, 2023), another full-length poetry collection, was recently published. She serves as the Translations Editor for On the Seawall.

Nancy can be found online at www.nancynaomicarlson.com.

• Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Esperanza Hope Snyder is a poet, a novelist, and a playwright. Honors include the Donald Everitt Axinn Award in Poetry for Bread Loaf, and fellowships for The Gettysburg Review and The Kenyon Review. Assistant Director of Bread in Sicily, co-coordinator of the Lorca Prize, her poetry book, Esperanza and Hope was published by Sheep Meadow Press (2018). Her co-translation with Nancy Naomi Carlson, of Wendy Guerra’s poetry, was noted in The New York Times.

You can find more from Esperanza at www.esperanzahopesnyder.com, or on Instagram, @esperanza_hope_snyder.