Piece Description

In honor of National Poetry Month, New Letters on the Air presents a public reading by Martin Espada. The program uplinked Wednesday, April 6, 2005 on PRSS satellite channel A68.5, and will be available on the Content Depot and PRX. Born in 1957 in Brooklyn, Martin Espada worked as a bouncer, a factory worker, the desk clerk on the night shift at a transient hotel, tenant lawyer in Chelsea, Mass., and most recently as a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. During this time, he's always been a poet, and his work reflects his ideals and hopes for a future where justice is finally done. "I know that change doesn’t happen overnight," says Espada. "I also know that no change for the good ever happens without being imagined first. Even at the time we imagine this great change, it seems hopeless because history teaches us otherwise." Espada is the author of seven collections of poems, including Imagine the Angels of Bread, which won the American Book Award, and his newest book, Alabanza: New and Selected Poems (1982-2002), which received the Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement, and was named an American Library Association Notable Book of the Year. He reads from both these books on the program, as well as a couple of newer poems. NEW LETTERS ON THE AIR is a weekly half-hour show featuring poets and writers of fiction, drama, and creative non-fiction. Whether in an interview that includes readings by an author or in produced recordings of poetry readings or holiday anthologies, the program presents writers in an informative and entertaining format that highlights the creative process. The show is uplinked every Wednesday at 1900 EST, NOW ON DIGITAL CHANNEL A68.5