Speakeasy Series to Feature Two Award Winning Poets

Tomorrow night, two poets will be reading at the Speakeasy Series in West Tisbury. Both Fanny Howe and Jennifer Tseng are award-winning poets, both have been nationally recognized, both live on Martha’s Vineyard. However, what neither poet has ever done is read alongside the other - even though Howe happens to be Tseng’s mother-in-law.

The Speakeasy Series of author talks takes place at , in collaboration with the West Tisbury Library Foundation, Inc. It is a series of intimate evenings with noted authors to benefit the library’s capital campaign. In addition to hors d’oeuvres and light refreshments, the Speakeasys offer an unparalleled chance to mingle and speak with an author in person.

Tseng has been the Writer-in-Residence at Hampshire College, a Visiting Writer at Colorado College, and has taught Asian American Studies at UCLA.  Her book The Man With My Face was winner of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s National Poetry Manuscript Competition and a 2006 PEN American Center Beyond Margins Award. Jennifer works at the West Tisbury Library and serves as Poetry Editor for “Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas.” 

Fanny Howe has received many awards, two National Endowment for the Arts, the Lenore Marshall Award, a Guggenheim, a California Commonwealth Award, and the Ruth Lilly Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Foundation. She has written several novels, young adult fiction, essays and poetry. Her most recent collections are The Winter Sun and Come and See, both from Graywolf Press. She teaches at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

For both Howe and Tseng, taking part in the Speakeasy Series fit with their love of West Tisbury and the library itself. Tseng said, “Beth asked me if I would like to read with Fanny at State Road restaurant to benefit the library.  That’s like saying, ‘Would you like to commune with a loved one in a beautiful place for the sake of books?’  How could I refuse?”

Howe said, “When I am here, I don't like to spend all my time in a car or to go out much.  I can walk to the library and get a sense of the people who live near me though I don't see them often in other places.  The library is welcoming, but not socially demanding.  It offers me time to read and peruse and stare out the window, knowing others are nearby. And in the summer, it is a haven for my grandchildren who still love to hold books.” 

The Island holds a very important place for both poets. “The practice of living on an island is not unlike the practice of being a writer. Some of us ferry ourselves across the water often, regularly setting our boots upon the main, while others of us cleave to our particular clod of earth, preferring to touch the world as it rolls in ecstasy at our slippers.  How best to be solitary?  How best to commune?  How write and live?  Being a poet among poets here helps me grapple with these questions,” said Tseng.

“The Vineyard has been part of my children's lives and my own for decades, but I move around a lot and don't identify myself with one place completely,” said Howe. “And so for me, it is a question of my love for a particular piece of land here with its birds and light and trees, and a sense of its importance to my family as a gathering place.”

Attendees to tomorrow evening’s event can expect to hear both old and new work of Howe’s and “Work that is not as strange as some of mine can be.” And Tseng will be reading poems from her current manuscript Red Flower, White Flower. Additionally, Tseng said, “I will be talking about inspiration—what it is, how it happens.  I’ll be talking about how each poem came into being and about some local inspirations and dedications.”

Both poets are looking forward to reading alongside one another. “There’s something appealingly dark and chocolaty about that front room and Fanny always radiates openness and solidarity,” said Tseng. Similarly, Howe said that in addition to doing something for the library, she’s looking forward to “Reading with my daughter-in-law, since it will probably be the only time we ever do, and it is certainly the only time we ever have.”

All Speakeasy events begin at 5:30 pm at State Road Restaurant, 688 State Road, West Tisbury. Hors d’oeuvres and light refreshments will be served. The price per ticket is $125 per person. Space is limited, so early booking is advised. For more information, or to make reservations, call Carol Brush: 508-693-3489.