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Unknown Flower with Patrick Rosal & Kirwyn Sutherland

Unknown Flower is a monthly poetry reading series at the Nick Virgilio Writers House in Camden, NJ. The series takes its name from a haiku Nick Virgilio wrote for his younger brother who died in the Vietnam War: “deep in rank grass, / through a bullet-riddled helmet: / an unknown flower”. We’ll gather together monthly to celebrate poetry that pierces through what would destroy, that survives and thrives, that blooms despite. 

This event is free. A brief open mic will follow the featured readers. 

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PATRICK ROSAL is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Brooklyn Antediluvian, which was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award and winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets. He has been a featured performer internationally in Greece, South Africa, the UK and at hundreds of spaces in the Caribbean, South America, the Philippines, and the U.S. In addition to residencies from the Lannan Foundation and Civitella Rainieri, he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Fulbright Core Research Program. He is an Associate Professor of English at Rutgers University-Camden.

KIRWYN SUTHERLAND is a Clinical Research Professional and poet who makes poems centering the black experience in America. He is a Watering Hole fellow and has attended workshops/residencies at Cave Canem, Winter Tangerine, Poets House, Philadelphia Sculpture Gym, and Pearlstein Art Gallery at Drexel University. Kirwyn’s work has been published in American Poetry Review, Blueshift Journal, APIARY Magazine, The Wanderer and elsewhere. Kirwyn has served as Editor of Lists/Book Reviewer for WusGood magazine and poetry editor for APIARY Magazine. Kirwyn is currently teaching Spoken Word/Poetry Performance at the University of the Arts and has a chapbook, Jump Ship, forthcoming from Thread Makes Blanket Press.

Earlier Event: March 10
Women's Poetry Reading
Later Event: March 20
Calm & Quiet