First Tuesdays Presents Sokunthary Svay

When: September 3, 2024 Where: Espresso 77 Café, 35-57 77th Street, Jackson Heights, NY 11372.
Time: 7:00 — 8:30 PM (open-mic sign up at 6:30)
Cost: $5 minimum purchase at the food counter.
More Information: Richard Jeffrey Newman

Sokunthary Svay is a Cambodian writer and performer from the Bronx. A founding member of the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association (CALAA), she has received fellowships from the American Opera Project, Poets House, Willow Books, and CUNY, as well as commissions from Washington National Opera, the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, the Chautauqua Institution, and ISSUE Project Room. She is a doctoral candidate in English at the CUNY Graduate Center and a Lecturer at CCNY in Harlem. Author of a poetry collection and three opera libretti, her hybrid memoir, *Put It on Record: A Memoir-Archive,* is now available from Willow Books.

Here’s a sample of her work:

from “I Am Apsara’s Daughter”

I wander in her forest
hearing ankle bells jingle with each step,
the universe at her feet and hands.
I want to touch her.
She flies in my house in paintings
with petals of orange blossom raining from the ceiling.

This event is funded in part by Poets & Writers with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.