Poems and Pints

Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Poetry Society of America presents the second evening of the winter Poems & Pints season, featuring Meena Alexander and John Burnside. Poetry readings take place in the venerable surroundings of the Nichols Room at Fraunces Tavern, a well-known meeting place since 1762, as well as the site of Washington’s farewell address and the first State and War Departments. Admission to all readings is free.

Meena Alexander was born in India, and raised there and Sudan. She has published six volumes of poetry including Illiterate Heart (2002), and is the editor of Indian Love Poems (2005). Most recently, Alexander wrote Poetics of Dislocation (2009), published by the University of Michigan Press, Poets on Poetry Series. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim, Fulbright, and Rockefeller Foundations, and the Arts Council of England. Alexander lives in New York, where she is Distinguished Professor of English at Hunter College and the Graduate Center CUNY.

John Burnside has published 12 books of poetry in the UK, most recently, Gift Songs (2007) and The Hunt in the Forest (2009). His novels, The Devil’s Footprints and The Glister are published in the United States by Nan Talese / Doubleday, and his memoir, A Lie About My Father by Graywolf. Burnside is a Professor of English at St Andrews University, Scotland and lives close by with his wife and his two sons.