Friday, July 8, 2016, 7pm

Versions of Quest: Yuyutsu Sharma, Ruth Danon &  David Austel 

 reading to benefit victims of the Nepal Earthquake at New York Open Center 

22 East 30th Street, New York, NY 10016 Phone (212) 219-2527  

http://www.opencenter.org/

Himalayan Poet Yuyutsu Sharma will read his fresh poetry from his new book, Quaking Cantos Nepal Earthquake Poems along with American poets, David Austell and Ruth Danon.

 Austell will read from his new book, Garuda focused on the Hindu deity.  Danon will read from her just published book, Limitless Tiny Boats.

 The poets will pay tribute to the people of Nepal and read poetry to celebrate the people’s resilience and faith in life on this earth suffering from limitless human greed and senseless globalization.

Associate Provost and Director of the International Students and Scholars Office at Columbia University in New York City, David Austell is the author of Little Creek and Other Poems, containing the best of his work written over a decade, David often depicts memories of his childhood in the small American town where he was raised against the backdrop of the U.S. war in Vietnam and the Cold War Era. Currently, David is working on his third book, The Tin Man, focusing on the life of Saint Joseph of Arimathea. David is also fascinated by the planet Mars. He nevertheless makes his home in Harlem which is a very, very long way from the Tharsis Plain.

Ruth Danon is the author of the poetry collections, Limitless Tiny Boat, (BlazeVOX, October 17, 2015)  Living with the Fireman (Ziesing Brothers, 1981), and Triangulation from a Known Point (North Star Line, 1990), and a book of literary criticism, Work in the English Novel (Croom-Helm, 1985). New work is forthcoming i The Florida Review. Her poetry was selected by Robert Creeley for Best American Poetry, 2002, and her poetry and prose have appeared in NOON: The Journal of the Small Poem,Versal, Mead, BOMB, the Paris Review, Fence, the Boston Review, 3rd Bed, Crayon, and many other publications in the U.S. and abroad. She is a professor of creative and expository writing in the School of Professional Studies of New York University and founding Director of the SPS Summer Intensive Creative Writing Workshops.

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 Himalayan poet, journalist and translator. He has published nine poetry collections including, Quaking Cantos: Nepal Earthquake Poems, A Blizzard in My Bones: New York Poems, Milarepa’s Bones, 33 New Poems, Nepal Trilogy, a 900-page book with renowned German photographer, Andreas Stimm, Space Cake, Amsterdam, & Other Poems from Europe and America and Annapurna Poems, Selected & New Poems.  Widely traveled author, Yuyu has read his works at several prestigious places and held workshop in creative writing and translation at Queen’s University, Belfast, University of Ottawa and South Asian Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany, University of California, Davis, Sacramento State University, California and New York University, New York. Yuyutsu’s own work has been translated into German, French, Italian, Slovenian, Hebrew, Spanish and Dutch. He edits Pratik, A Magazine of Contemporary Writing and contributes literary columns to Nepal’s leading daily, The Himalayan Times. He was at the Poetry Parnassus Festival organized to celebrate London Olympics 2012 where he represented Nepal and India. Currently, Yuyutsu is in New York as a Visiting Poet at Columbia University. Half the year, he travels and reads all over the world to read from his works and conducts creative writing workshop at various universities in North America and Europe but goes trekking in the Himalayas when back home