Friday, Feb 7, 2014, 6:00-8:30 pm, Yuyutsu Sharma and David Austell, guests of the Rubin Museum of Art’s Himalayan Heritage Meetup Group, Theme: Love Poetry of the 6th Dalai Lama, Hosted by Tashi Chodron, Rubin Museum, 150 W 17th St, New York, http://www.rmanyc.org. Phone: (212) 620-5000. Free and open to public.
Meet in the Museum’s café at 6:00 pm.

We are excited to invite you to the next session of the Himalayan Heritage Meet up group on Friday, February 7, from 6-8:30PM. This month, in honor of Valentine’s Day, we are inspired by the love poetry of the famous 6th Dalai Lama. Tsangyang Gyatso! We will meet in the Museum’s Serai Café at 6PM, then head to the galleries where we will explore some images and listen to poetry written by this unusual figure with our host, Tashi Chodron.

This month, we have the great opportunity to welcome two distinguished guest poets, Yuyutsu Sharma and David Austell from NYU. After our gallery experience, we will move to our Education Center where Yuyutsu Sharma will read from his book, Milarepa’s Bones, Helambu: 33 New Poems and David Austell will read from his new book. Garuda and Other Poems of Astral Plains accompanied by music and images. Afterwards we will all learn the melody to one of the 6th Dalai Lama’s renowned poems and socialize with some Valentine’s Day themed refreshments.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Date: Friday, February 7
Time: Meet in museum Café at 6:00. We move to the education Center at 6:45.

David B. Austell
David B. Austell is Assistant Vice President and Director of the Office of Global Services at New York University in New York City, where he is also an Associate Professor of International Education in the NYU Steinhardt School (adjunct). David has undergraduate and graduate degrees in English Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he also completed his Ph.D. in Higher Education focusing on International Education. In 1992, David was a Fulbright grantee in Japan and Korea. The love of poetry grows from deep roots, and in David’s case from his parents: his mother who sent poetry, sacred and secular, to him all through college with her letters, and his father who read Shakespeare and Coleridge to him as a child.

Yuyutsu RD Sharma
Recipient of fellowships and grants from The Rockefeller Foundation, Ireland Literature Exchange, Trubar Foundation, Slovenia, The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature and The Foundation for the Production and Translation of Dutch Literature, Yuyutsu RD Sharma is a distinguished poet and translator. He has published nine poetry collections including, Milarepa’s Bones, 33 New Poems, (Nirala, New Delhi 2012), Nepal Trilogy, Photographs and Poetry on Annapurna, Everest, Helambu & Langtang (www.Nepal-Trilogy.de, Epsilonmedia, Karlsruhe, 2010), a 900-page book with renowned German photographer, Andreas Stimm, Space Cake, Amsterdam, & Other Poems from Europe and America, (2009, Indian reprint 2013) and Annapurna Poems, 2008, Reprint, 2012).
Yuyutsu also brought out a translation of Irish poet Cathal O’ Searcaigh poetry in Nepali in a bilingual collection entitled, Kathmandu: Poems, Selected and New (2006) and a translation of Hebrew poet Ronny Someck’s poetry in Nepali in a bilingual edition, Baghdad, February 1991 & Other Poems. He has translated and edited several anthologies of contemporary Nepali poetry in English and launched a literary movement, Kathya Kayakalpa (Content Metamorphosis) in Nepali poetry.

More about the poets can be had at http://www.niralapublications.com