National Poetry Month Reading with Poets Ricardo Maldonado and Eugenia Leigh

Poets Ricardo Maldonado and Eugenia Leigh will read poems and discuss their lives as poets in the world. The readings will be followed by a conversation between the poets and a brief Q&A.

The event will be hosted by the English Department and Creative Writing MFA programs and moderated by faculty members and poets Maya Marshall and Jan-Henry Gray.

About the Poets

Ricardo Alberto Maldonado

Ricardo Alberto Maldonado was born and raised in Puerto Rico. A graduate of Tufts and Columbia University, he is the author of The Life Assignment (Four Way Books, 2020), a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award, one of Remezcla’s Best Books by Latina or Latin American Authors, and Silver Medalist for the Juan Felipe Herrera Best Poetry Book Award. He is the recipient of fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, CantoMundo, Queer|Art|Mentorship, and the T. S. Eliot and Hawthornden foundations. He currently serves as the President and Executive Director for the Academy of American Poets.

Eugenia Leigh

Eugenia Leigh is a Korean American poet and the author of two poetry collections, Bianca (Four Way Books, 2023) and Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014), winner of the Late-Night Library’s 2015 Debut-litzer Prize in Poetry selected by Arisa White, as well as a finalist for both the National Poetry Series and the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Poems from Bianca received the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry magazine and have appeared in numerous publications including The Atlantic, The Nation, Ploughshares, and the Best of the Net anthology. Her essays have appeared in TIME, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Eugenia received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and serves as a Poetry Editor at The Adroit Journal and as the Valentines Editor at Honey Literary, a BIPOC-focused literary journal and literary arts organization.