Podcast appearances and mentions of Latasha N Nevada

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Jeff Alessandrelli interviews LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs.LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs is a poet and sound artist. She is the author of the poetry collections, Village (Coffee House Press, 2023)  and TwERK (Belladonna, 2013), in addition to three chapbooks. Her interdisciplinary work has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Walker Art Center. Jeff Alessandrelli is the author of several books, including the poetry collection Fur Not Light. His novel And Yet is being reissued this year by Future Tense Books. He is also the director and co-editor of the small presses Fonograf Editions and Bunny Presse.____________PART ONE, topics include:-- growing up and still living in Harlem-- living in the Bay Area and other places too-- freelance music writing for a time, then going to school-- first developing with play-- early life as a poet --trying out different things while going to writing programs -- getting an MFA but finding buddies in Cave Canem________PART TWO, topics include:-- the success of her first full-length poetry collection TwERK-- the uncertain path to the first collection-- residencies -- the new poetry book VILLAGE, out last year with Coffee House-- a decade between books -- the complexity and modes of VILLAGE-- giving time-- a webinar series related to the book_______________Podcast theme music  by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.Episode and show artwork by Amy Wheaton.

Recorded by LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs for Poem-a-Day, a series produced by the Academy of American Poets. Published on December 15, 2023. www.poets.org

Vuyokazi Ngemntu invites LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs and Sihle Ntuli to reflect on their poetic practice, language and dispossession, literacies, influences, rootedness, Black women's histories and music.  Vuyokazi Ngemntu is a writer-performer situated in Cape Town. She has received awards for her short stories and her work has appeared in The Kalahari Review, Herri, Ake Review and elsewhere. LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs is a writer, vocalist and performance/sound artist. She is the author of the poetry collections TwERK (Belladonna, 2013) and Village (Coffee House Press, 2023). She lives in Harlem and teaches part-time at Brooklyn College and Stetson University. Sihle Ntuli is a poet from Durban and a recipient of the 2023 JIAS Writing Fellowship for his poetry. He is the editor-in-chief of New Contrast.  He is the author of the poetry chapbooks Rumblin' (Uhlanga, 2020) and The Nation (River Glass Books, 2023) in addition to the full-length poetry collection Zabalaza Republic (Botsotso, 2023). In this episode we are in solidarity with writer and activist Wai Moe Naing. We call on the authorities in Myanmar to free him. You can read more about his case here: https://www.pen-international.org/news/myanmar-pen-member-now-serving-54-year-prison-sentence As tributes to him, LaTasha reads “American Sonnet 61” by Wanda Coleman, Sihle reads his poem “The National Screening of Sarafina, Every Year on June 16th” and Vuyokazi reads her own untitled poem. PEN South Africa joins the PEN community in mourning the passing of writer, photographer, artist, and President of PEN Myanmar, Nyein Chan (known by his pen name, Nyi Pu Lay). You can read more about him here: https://www.pen-international.org/news/myanmar-pen-mourns-the-passing-of-pen-myanmar-president-nyi-pu-lay This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa to promote open conversation and highlight shared histories.

City Lights presents LaTasha N. Nevada-Diggs, Eleni Sikelianos, and Anne Waldman reading new poetry and celebrating their three new books of poetry from Coffee House Press: "Village" by LaTasha N. Nevada-Diggs – "Your Kingdom" by Eleni Sikelianos – "Bard, Kinetic" by Anne Waldman. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Village" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/village-4/ "Your Kingdom" here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/your-kingdom/ And "Bard, Kinetic" here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/bard-kinetic/ To learn more about the authors, visit: https://citylights.com/events/coffee-house-press-extravaganza-with-latasha-nevada-diggs-eleni-sykelianos-and-anne-waldman/ Coffee House Press creates new spaces for audiences and artists to interact, inspiring readers and enriching communities by expanding the definition of what literature is, what it can do, and who it belongs to. They are one of the nation's leading independent literary publisher, and demonstrate a vision for the future of literature through innovative off-the-page programming that broadens and deepens literature's relevance to the world. Visit https://coffeehousepress.org/ This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

It's been a minute! Thanks for your patience as I've slogged through life. In this episode I spoke with Samuel Ace about his book Our Weather Our Sea. Samuel Ace is a trans/genderqueer poet and sound artist. He is the author of several books, most recently Our Weather Our Sea (Black Radish 2019), the newly re-issued Meet Me There: Normal Sex and Home in three days. Don’t wash., (Belladonna* Germinal Texts 2019), and Stealth with poet Maureen Seaton. He is the recipient of the Astraea Lesbian Writer Award and the Firecracker Alternative Book Award in Poetry, as well as a two-time finalist for both the Lambda Literary Award and the National Poetry Series. Recent work can be found in Poetry, PEN America, Best American Experimental Poetry, Vinyl, and many other journals and anthologies. He currently teaches poetry and creative writing at Mount Holyoke College in western Massachusetts. Sam's website Buy Our Weather Our Sea Also buy Meet Me There: Normal Sex & Home in three days. Don’t wash. Books, poets, artists, etc mentioned in this episode: Ari Banias  Oliver Baez Bendorf  TC Tolbert's "Dear Melissa"  j/j hastain Julie Carr's Real Life: An Installation Ronaldo Wilson's Lucy 72 Douglas Kearney's Mess and Mess and  M. NourbeSe Philip's ZONG!  Ching-In Chen's recombinant  Sawako Nakayasu's Mouth Eats Color  Harmony Holiday a reading from 2015  LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs's Twerk Caroline Bergvall's sound installations  Cecilia Vicuña's New and Selected Poems Saborami (Chainlinks) Tracie Morris two poems Andrea Abi-Karam's EXTRATRANSMISSION  Orlando White LETTERRS  Maureen Seaton  Rickey Laurentiis  Philip B. Williams  Ocean Vuong  Farid Matuk  Kaveh Akbar  Angel Dominguez's D E S G R A C I A D O  Ariana Reines's A Sand Book  Trace Peterson's Since I Moved In  Go listen to my interview with Roy over at the Marxist Poetry Podcast The Sound of Waves Breaking: Samuel Ace's "These Nights"  Editor and Social Media Manager: Mitchel Davidovitz

In Breaking Walls Episode 61, we head to Governor's Island to explore the participatory art project Writing On It All, and speak with artistic director Alexandra Chasin. Highlights • An abridged history of Governor's Island • Audio from “Here,” by Ana-Maurine Lara and LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs at the day of this event • Where Alexandra's inspiration for Writing on It All Comes From • Why it's so important to break free from these societal fears • Why the history of Governor's Island is so important in conjunction with this project • Why it's important to think of writing as a site-specific art • What's next for Writing on it All at Governor's Island and in General Links Web - http://writingonitall.com Social Media - @writingonitall WallBreakers Links Unity T-shirt line - http://jamesthewallbreaker.com/shop/ To subscribe on itunes search for Breaking Walls To subscribe on soundcloud follow @TheWallBreakers

Juliana Huxtable & LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs Readings Friday, October 9, 7pm Artists Space Books & Talks 55 Walker Street “Performance is a bothersome word for writerly poets” writes poet Nathaniel Mackey in his essay “Sight-Specific, Sound-Specific…” from 2005. Despite twentieth century poetry’s rich tradition of performance, Mackey notes that in poetry there is often an expectation for words do the performing, as opposed to people or things. Yet, language exists beyond just words, and functions in tandem with images, gestures, bodies and technologies. In this series of readings, distinctions between the language of performance and the performance of language are blurred. Foregrounded are writerly poets who embrace images, gestures, bodies and technologies in the presentation of their poetry – as elements that don’t overshadow their poetics, but are embraced as part of its liveliness, and of reading as a social experience. The series is structured via themes of sound, the body, technology, theater and comedy. These themes offer different formal histories for poets to explore the presentation of poetic language. Juliana Huxtable and LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs both experiment with the effects of audio distortion and sampling. Sophia Le Fraga, Ian Hatcher and Alejandro Miguel Justino Crawford all utilize different digital technologies to question the ground of their poetry. Whitney Claflin and Corina Copp present relational and formal theatrical environments out of which their poetics unfold. There is an invisible architecture often supporting the surface of the poem, interrupting the progress of the poem. It reaches into the poem in search for an identity with the poem, its object is to possess the poem for a brief time, even as an apparition appears. writes Barbara Guest in her poetic essay, “Invisible Architecture” (2000). In this she understands the formal and historical context of the poem as a material that contributes to its meaning – as both apart from and a part of poetic language. Reading functions similarly; it is not a neutral action, but contributes to the meaning of the text presented. In a moment when language and presentation of self alike are understood as multiple, and bound within wider, connected systems, performance becomes a means of making the “invisible architecture” of the poem visible, and activating it as a poetic material in itself. Juliana Huxtable is an artist, poet, performer, and DJ who often uses her own body, gender fluidity, and identity as her primary subject. Huxtable’s work was featured in the 2015 Triennial, Surround Audience at the New Museum, New York (2015), as well as at MoMA PS1, New York (2014); White Columns Annual, White Columns, New York (2014); Take Ecstasy with Me, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2014); and Frieze Projects, London (2014), among other venues. She lives and works in New York. For more information click here http://artistsspace.org/programs/huxtable-diggs

Alejandro Miguel Justino Crawford, Ian Hatcher & Sophia Le Fraga Readings Friday, October 16, 7pm Artists Space Books & Talks 55 Walker Street “Performance is a bothersome word for writerly poets” writes poet Nathaniel Mackey in his essay “Sight-Specific, Sound-Specific…” from 2005. Despite twentieth century poetry’s rich tradition of performance, Mackey notes that in poetry there is often an expectation for words do the performing, as opposed to people or things. Yet, language exists beyond just words, and functions in tandem with images, gestures, bodies and technologies. In this series of readings, distinctions between the language of performance and the performance of language are blurred. Foregrounded are writerly poets who embrace images, gestures, bodies and technologies in the presentation of their poetry – as elements that don’t overshadow their poetics, but are embraced as part of its liveliness, and of reading as a social experience. The series is structured via themes of sound, the body, technology, theater and comedy. These themes offer different formal histories for poets to explore the presentation of poetic language. Juliana Huxtable and LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs both experiment with the effects of audio distortion and sampling. Sophia Le Fraga, Ian Hatcher and Alejandro Miguel Justino Crawford all utilize different digital technologies to question the ground of their poetry. Whitney Claflin and Corina Copp present relational and formal theatrical environments from which their poetics unfold. There is an invisible architecture often supporting the surface of the poem, interrupting the progress of the poem. It reaches into the poem in search for an identity with the poem, its object is to possess the poem for a brief time, even as an apparition appears. writes Barbara Guest in her poetic essay, “Invisible Architecture” (2000). In this she understands the formal and historical context of the poem as a material that contributes to its meaning – as both apart from and a part of poetic language. Reading functions similarly; it is not a neutral action, but contributes to the meaning of the text presented. In a moment when language and presentation of self alike are understood as multiple, and bound within wider, connected systems, performance becomes a means of making the “invisible architecture” of the poem visible, and activating it as a poetic material in itself. Ian Hatcher is a writer, programmer, and sound artist whose work explores cognition in context of digital systems. He is the author of Prosthesis (Poor Claudia 2015) and The All-New (Anomalous 2015). With Amaranth Borsuk and Kate Durbin, he is co-creator of Abra, a conjoined analog (artist's book) + digital (iOS app) poetry instrument/spellbook. >> ianhatcher.net For more information click here http://artistsspace.org/programs/crawford-hatcher-le-fraga

Juliana Huxtable & LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs Readings Friday, October 9, 7pm Artists Space Books & Talks 55 Walker Street “Performance is a bothersome word for writerly poets” writes poet Nathaniel Mackey in his essay “Sight-Specific, Sound-Specific…” from 2005. Despite twentieth century poetry’s rich tradition of performance, Mackey notes that in poetry there is often an expectation for words do the performing, as opposed to people or things. Yet, language exists beyond just words, and functions in tandem with images, gestures, bodies and technologies. In this series of readings, distinctions between the language of performance and the performance of language are blurred. Foregrounded are writerly poets who embrace images, gestures, bodies and technologies in the presentation of their poetry – as elements that don’t overshadow their poetics, but are embraced as part of its liveliness, and of reading as a social experience. The series is structured via themes of sound, the body, technology, theater and comedy. These themes offer different formal histories for poets to explore the presentation of poetic language. Juliana Huxtable and LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs both experiment with the effects of audio distortion and sampling. Sophia Le Fraga, Ian Hatcher and Alejandro Miguel Justino Crawford all utilize different digital technologies to question the ground of their poetry. Whitney Claflin and Corina Copp present relational and formal theatrical environments out of which their poetics unfold. There is an invisible architecture often supporting the surface of the poem, interrupting the progress of the poem. It reaches into the poem in search for an identity with the poem, its object is to possess the poem for a brief time, even as an apparition appears. writes Barbara Guest in her poetic essay, “Invisible Architecture” (2000). In this she understands the formal and historical context of the poem as a material that contributes to its meaning – as both apart from and a part of poetic language. Reading functions similarly; it is not a neutral action, but contributes to the meaning of the text presented. In a moment when language and presentation of self alike are understood as multiple, and bound within wider, connected systems, performance becomes a means of making the “invisible architecture” of the poem visible, and activating it as a poetic material in itself. LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs is the author of TwERK (Belladonna, 2013). Her interdisciplinary work has been featured at MoMA, the Walker Art Center and the 2015 Venice Biennale. A native of Harlem, LaTasha is the recipient of numerous awards; of them include New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information click here http://artistsspace.org/programs/huxtable-diggs

The Kitchen, located in Chelsea, and The Studio Museum in Harlem have a couple of exciting things in common. Both centers herald innovation in the arts. And now both have Hoofers' House--an intimate tap jam session celebrating tap dance on the cutting edge. Rashida Bumbray--who co-founded Hoofers' House at SMH and now serves as Assistant Curator at The Kitchen--joins me to talk about this new partnership and The Kitchen's upcoming free event, hosted by master tap dancer/teacher Jason Samuels Smith (May 23). BIO Rashida Bumbray is a dancer and curator living in Harlem. While Bumbray's primary dance form is tap, she has studied with international dance masters of various forms in Brazil, The Gambia, and London. Her personal work combines her passion for dance and visual art in the interest of creating and presenting work that interrogates society and inspires transformation. Bumbray has been Assistant Curator at The Kitchen since Fall 2006. Previously she enjoyed a five and half year tenure at The Studio Museum in Harlem, as Curatorial Assistant and Exhibition Coordinator. She is co-founder and curator of Studio Sound, the Studio Museum's lobby music installation which featured new works by Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Marc Cary, and Charlie Dark’s The Black Atlantic Project: a musical chain letter. Recently she co-curated the exhibition Mai-Thu Perret: An Evening of the Book with Debra Singer and has organized several music events at The Kitchen, including new concert works by Pheroan akLaff, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Guillermo E. Brown, Min Xiao-Fen, and Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber. She is also the co-founder of Hoofers’ House, the Studio Museum's quarterly jam session for tap dancers, which is now co-produced by The Kitchen. EVENT Hoofers' House, May 23, 8pm. Free. For details, visit The Kitchen site (link below). LINKS The Kitchen http://thekitchen.org The Studio Museum in Harlem http://www.studiomuseum.org Jason Samuels Smith Divine Rhythm Productions http://www.divinerhythmproductions.macwebsitebuilder.com/ JasonSamuelsSmith.html Body and Soul is the official podcast of InfiniteBody dance blog at http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Subscribe through iTunes or at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

The Kitchen, located in Chelsea, and The Studio Museum in Harlem have a couple of exciting things in common. Both centers herald innovation in the arts. And now both have Hoofers' House--an intimate tap jam session celebrating tap dance on the cutting edge. Rashida Bumbray--who co-founded Hoofers' House at SMH and now serves as Assistant Curator at The Kitchen--joins me to talk about this new partnership and The Kitchen's upcoming free event, hosted by master tap dancer/teacher Jason Samuels Smith (May 23). BIO Rashida Bumbray is a dancer and curator living in Harlem. While Bumbray's primary dance form is tap, she has studied with international dance masters of various forms in Brazil, The Gambia, and London. Her personal work combines her passion for dance and visual art in the interest of creating and presenting work that interrogates society and inspires transformation. Bumbray has been Assistant Curator at The Kitchen since Fall 2006. Previously she enjoyed a five and half year tenure at The Studio Museum in Harlem, as Curatorial Assistant and Exhibition Coordinator. She is co-founder and curator of Studio Sound, the Studio Museum's lobby music installation which featured new works by Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Marc Cary, and Charlie Dark’s The Black Atlantic Project: a musical chain letter. Recently she co-curated the exhibition Mai-Thu Perret: An Evening of the Book with Debra Singer and has organized several music events at The Kitchen, including new concert works by Pheroan akLaff, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Guillermo E. Brown, Min Xiao-Fen, and Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber. She is also the co-founder of Hoofers’ House, the Studio Museum's quarterly jam session for tap dancers, which is now co-produced by The Kitchen. EVENT Hoofers' House, May 23, 8pm. Free. For details, visit The Kitchen site (link below). LINKS The Kitchen http://thekitchen.org The Studio Museum in Harlem http://www.studiomuseum.org Jason Samuels Smith Divine Rhythm Productions http://www.divinerhythmproductions.macwebsitebuilder.com/ JasonSamuelsSmith.html Body and Soul is the official podcast of InfiniteBody dance blog at http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Subscribe through iTunes or at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa