Sister Poets: Reading by Kathy Engel and Jill Bialosky

Kathy Engel is a poet, essayist, educator, and organizational strategic consultant. She currently serves as Chair and Associate Arts Professor in NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Department of Art and Public Policy, and Master’s Program in Arts Politics. Over the past 40 years Kathy has worked in many of the major social justice, peace, and human rights movements in the U.S. Kathy’s poems, essays, and reviews have been published and anthologized widely. Books include Ruth’s Skirts (IKON, 2007); The Kitchen, in collaboration with artist German Perez (Yaboa Press, 2011); and We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon, co-edited with Kamal Boullata (Interlink Books, 2007). Kathy’s poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. The video work Whowillkneel4you? (2018) appears on The Root, and features a chorus of artists reading Kathy’s poem, “To Kneel.”

Jill Bialosky is the author of four acclaimed collections of poetry, most recently The Players; three critically acclaimed novels, most recently, The Prize; a New York Times best-selling memoir, History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life; and Poetry Will Save Your Life: A Memoir. Her poems and essays have appeared in Best American Poetry, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, O Magazine, The Kenyon Review, Harvard Review, and Paris Review, among others. She coedited, with Helen Schulman, the anthology Wanting a Child. She is an Executive Editor and Vice President at W. W. Norton & Company. Her work has been a finalist for the James Laughlin Prize, The Patterson Prize, and Books for a Better Life. In 2014, she was honored by the Poetry Society of America for her distinguished contribution to poetry. She lives in New York City.