The Baltimore Book Festival returns Saturday, September 28 – Sunday, September 29, 2024 with programming in and around Waverly Main Street. The festival will span six stages and feature over 100 presenting authors including: Glory Edim, Maryland’s Poet Laureate Lady Brion, D. Watkins, Adrienne Maree Brown, Rion Amilcar Scott, Marion Winik, and more.
Among the nationally acclaimed authors we are excited to welcome to Baltimore is poet and scholar, Kazim Ali. Ali is currently a Professor of Comparative Literature and Creative Writing, and chair of the Department of Literature at the University of California, San Diego. His newest books are Sukun: New and Selected Poems, the novel Indian Winter, and Black Buffalo Woman: An Introduction to the Poetry and Poetics of Lucille Clifton.
Saturday, September 28, on the CityLit stage, Ali will be in conversation with Joël Díaz on Black Buffalo Woman. The book is a thoughtful and comprehensive study of Clifton’s literary accomplishments, connecting and illuminating her prolific poetic oeuvre, children’s and middle-grade books, and spirit writings.
We are especially excited about this conversation as love for Lucille Clifton, who spent much of her creative life in Baltimore, runs deep in our city. And who better than Joël Díaz—writer, educator, and the Director of Programs at The Clifton House—to take the mic with Ali?
Díaz commends, “Kazim Ali’s Black Buffalo Woman: An Introduction to the Poetry and Poetics of Lucille Clifton bends its ear & eye toward the e(c)ho:tones of Lucille Clifton; where the ordinary both summons and evades the ecstatic, death engenders the living, and witness is an act of grief and celebration. In his quest to map and study the pluralities in Lucille’s work, Ali generously pairs biographical insights with scholarly analysis, accenting her artistic brilliance and illuminating the political importance they contain. This book will encourage readers to reach towards Clifton’s writing again and anew, wanting for themselves a greater, more dedicated intimacy with her words.”
You can catch Kazim Ali and Joël Díaz’s conversation this Saturday, Sept 28, 2024, at the CityLit Stage on 31st Street & Barclay Street, 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm.
Same day/ same stage at 6:15 pm – 7:45 pm: CityLit presents readings by esteemed poets from across and beyond the region with “The Hunger I Felt”: featuring Kazim Ali, Kim Jensen, Lady Brion, and Sylvia Fox among others.
For more information about the 25th annual Baltimore Book Festival visit baltimorebookfestival.com.
You can find CityLit’s full itinerary of Baltimore Book Festival readings and events HERE.
