An evening extravaganza of poetry, music, and tributes celebrating Dominican-American poet Rhina Espaillat and the donation of her archives to Boston College.

Featuring:
Dana Gioia
Julia Alvarez
Silvio Torres-Saillant
Nancy Kang
Sarah Aponte
Toni Treadway
Alfred Nicol
John Tavano
Roger Kimball
Riikka Pietiläinen Caffrey
Kristin Vining
... and Rhina!

Rhina P. Espaillat was born in the Dominican Republic in 1932 and came to the United States as a young girl with her family as exiles from dictatorship, settling in New York City. Following a career as a public school teacher, she returned to writing poetry after attending the first West Chester University Poetry Conference, established in 1995 by New Formalist poets Michael Peich and Dana Gioia. 

Espaillat has since garnered widespread acclaim as a bilingual poet and translator. Her numerous poetry collections include Rehearsing Absence, recipient of the Richard Wilbur Award, and Where Horizons Go, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize. She has received critical acclaim and prizes for her translations, among others, of the poetry of Robert Frost and Richard Wilbur into Spanish, and St. John of the Cross and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz into English.

Espaillat is a founding member of the Fresh Meadows Poets and a founding member and former director of the Powow River Poets. A resident of Newburyport since 1990, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Salem State College in 2008, and in 2021, Plough Quarterly established the annual Rhina Espaillat Poetry Award in her honor.

The program will begin at 5:30pm and continue through the evening. Come when you can, leave when you must. Free food and beverages. Books and CDs available for sale and signing.

All are welcome. Bring your friends.

For parking, accessibility, and more information visit: https://bit.ly/redshoenight

PSst: Red Shoe Night?!? Put on your red shoes and come find out why! And come prepared to read a poem of your own, if you dare.