For The Public: Welcome to the Bronx

The New York Public Library's free performance and conversation series For The Public heads to the Bronx for a special evening of poetry and discussion with activist writers Jose Olivarez, Peggy Robles-Alvarado, the Peace Poets, and Miles Hodges. Each speaker will share new poems and their thoughts on a being writers of color in a post-election America. 

Miles Hodges is an writer, performer, and founding member of The Strivers Row. He serves as ambassador to emerging adults at The New York Public Library. Miles lives in Harlem. 

Peggy Robles-Alvarado is a New York City educator and poet, and author of Conversations With My Skin and Homenaje A Las Guerreras/ Homage to the Warrior Women. She is a 2014 Bronx Recognizes Its Own award winner, a Bronx Council on The Arts grant recipient, a Spaceworks Bronx Community Artist grant recipient, and one of Bronx Times 25 Most Influential Women of the Bronx in 2016. Robles-Alvarado has been published in 92Y’s #wordswelivein, NACLA, and The Bronx Memoir Project. She has been participated in Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Poets and Writers' Connecting Cultures Reading, The BADD!ASS Women Festival, and was featured on HBO Latino's Habla Women. Her latest book The Abuela Stories Project, an anthology of women writers, debuted on December 8, 2016 at The Bronx Museum of the Arts. 

Jose Olivarez is the co-author of the book of poems Home Court (2014). He serves as Program Director at Urban Word NYC, and received a Bronx Recognizes Its Own award from the Bronx Council on the Arts in 2015. His work has been published in The BreakBeat Poets, Vinyl Poetry and Prose, Specter Magazine, and Union Station Magazine, among other journals. He is from Calumet City, IL and lives in the Bronx.

Program is free, but advance registration is recommended.