NOPF Road Show: Yes We Cannibal, Baton Rouge, LA

The New Orleans Poetry Festival takes the show on the road in 2024. In partnership with the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, and Yes We Cannibal, this event features Korean poets Ha Jaeyoun and Hwang Yuwon, translator and poet Jake Levine, and three poets from Louisiana: Lisa Pasold, Henry Goldkamp, and Benjamin Morris. These poets will perform their work and take part in a brief Q&A. Free and open to the public, this event will take place on Tuesday, April 16th, 7pm at Yes We Cannibal, 1600 Government St, Baton Rouge, LA 70802. More events at https://nolapoetry.com/

Ha Jaeyoun started her career in 2002 when she received the award for best new poet from the journal <문학과 사회Literature and Society>. She received a PhD in Modern Korean Literature from Korea University for her research in 1930’s Korean poetry. She also was the recipient of the 3rd Yeongnam-ilbo Ku Sang Literature prize.

She is the author of the poetry collections, <라디오 데이즈Radio Days> (Moonji, 2006), <세계의 모든 해변처럼Like all the Beaches in the World> (Moonji, 2012), and <우주적인 안녕Universal Hello> (Moonji, 2019). She is also the author of the research books <근대시의 모험과 움직이는 조선어Adventures of Modern Poetry and Moving Chosun Language> (Somyeong Press, 2012), <문학의 상상과 시의 실천The Imagination of Literature and the Action of Poetry> (Bogosa, 2022), <무한한 역설의 사랑Infinite Love of Paradox> (Bogosa, 2022) and the collection of essays <내게 와 어두워진 빛들에게To the darkened lights by the coming of me> (Moonji, 2023).

English translations of her poems appeared in Poems of Hwang Yuwon, Ha Jaeyoun, & Seo Dae-kyung (Edited & Introduced by Jake Levine, Vagabond Press, 2020). In addition, the poetry collection Radion days was published in English(Translated by Sue Hyon Bae, Black Ocean, 2023). After the pandemic started began a series of poems that she has been publishing called “언데드Undead.” and “종의 기원The Origin of Species”.

Hwang Yuwon is a poet, translator. He is the author of 4 collections of poetry, White Deer Lake, Supernatural 3D Printing, You Should See Me in a Crown, and Everything in the World, Maximized. He translates poetry and novels from English to Korean. Among them are The Lyrics: 1961-2012 by Bob Dylan, Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah, Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter, and Glass, Irony & God by Anne Carson.

Jake Levine is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Keimyung University. He has written and translated or co-translated over a dozen books, including Kim Yideum’s Hysteria (Action Books, 2019) which was the first book to be awarded both the National Translation Award and the Lucien Stryk Prize. He is a former Fulbright Fellow (to Lithuania in 2010), a recipient of a Korean Government Scholarship, served as an assistant editor at Acta Koreana, as a poetry editor at Spork Press, as the managing editor and editor-in-chief at Sonora Review, and currently edits the award-winning contemporary Korean poetry series, Moon Country, at Black Ocean. He has also translated other cultural contents such as Yun Hyong-Keun’s diaries and narration for the K-pop group ENHYPEN. His first full-length book of poetry The Imagined Country is out with Tolsun Books in 2023.

Lisa Pasold is originally from Montreal. Her 2012 book, Any Bright Horse, was nominated for Canada’s Governor General’s Award for Poetry. Her fifth book, The Riparian, is about a ghost, a river, and a dive bar. Her poetry has appeared in magazines such as Fence, Exile, and New American Writing. Lisa has taught Creative Writing at the American University in Paris and has led writing workshops across North America and France. She has worked as a journalist for diverse publications including The Chicago Tribune and Billboard Magazine; she is the host & co-writer of Discovery World’s TV travel show, “Paris Next Stop”. www.lisapasold.com

Henry Goldkamp (he/they) is an experimental poet and interdisciplinary artist whose work blurs the boundaries between poetry, visual art, and community performance through public installations of intermedia, such as an olfactory poem “read” through the nose (SUMMERTIMER, 2023), immersive clown utilizing audience participation (Balloon Animal, 2023), a grove of trees in which thousands of poems were hung for passersby to pluck and then mail to strangers out of a phonebook (The Poetree Project, 2014), and a citywide installation of 60+ typewriters—resulting in the first ever book to be composed by a city (What the Hell Is Saint Louis Thinking? 2013). By creating such spaces of dialogue and interactive expression, he encourages participants to connect with each other and their shared environment.

He lives in New Orleans, where he co-runs The Splice Poetry Series, acts as intermedia editor for the small press Tilted House, and teaches at Louisiana State University. Art and criticism appear in Indiana Review, Best New Poets 2021, Denver Quarterly, Works & Days, Accelerants, Volt, Triquarterly, Tyger Quarterly, Bat City Review (winner of the 2022 Hybrid Prize), Afternoon Visitor, DIAGRAM, and Annulet, among others. His public art projects have been covered by NPR’s Morning Edition and Time and he was recently an artist-in-residence at Mary Sky in Vermont.

A native of Mississippi, Benjamin Morris is the author of Coronary (Fitzgerald Letterpress, 2011), Hattiesburg, Mississippi: A History of the Hub City (Arcadia/The History Press, 2014), and Ecotone (Antenna/Press Street, 2017). His work appears in such places as The Oxford American, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Lithub, and The Southern Review, and has received fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission, Tulane University, and A Studio in the Woods. Recently he won the 2021 Words & Music Writing Competition for Poetry, judged by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. Formerly a resident of the United Kingdom, he now lives in New Orleans. http://benjaminalanmorris.com.