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Reconstruction: Eloisa Amezcua & Courtney Faye Taylor

Sat, Nov 5, 2022 from 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm PDT
1119 SW Park Ave Portland, OR 97205

General Admission Pass required for entry

These two poetry collections use visual form and experimentation in language to explore very different subjects: boxing and marriage, racial violence and Black womanhood. Moderated by Anis Mojgani, Oregon poet laureate.

In Fighting Is Like a Wife, Eloisa Amezcua uses striking visual poems to reconstruct the love story—and the tragedy—of two-time world boxing champion “Shoolboy” Bobby Chacon and his first wife, Valorie Ginn. Using haunting, visceral language to evoke the emotion of the fight, and incorporating direct quotations from sports commentators and Bobby himself, Fighting Is Like a Wife reveals how boxing, like love and poetry, can be brutal, vulnerable, and surprising.

In her virtuosic debut, Concentrate, Courtney Faye Taylor explores the under-told history of the murder of Latasha Harlins—a fifteen-year-old Black girl killed by a Korean shop owner, Soon Ja Du, after being falsely accused of shoplifting a bottle of orange juice. Harlins’s murder and the following trial, which resulted in no prison time for Du, were inciting incidents of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, and came to exemplify the long-fraught relationship between Black and Asian American communities in the United States. Through a collage-like approach to collective history and storytelling, Taylor’s poems present a profound look into the insidious points at which violence originates against—and between—women of color.


Portland Book Festival General Admission Passes are required for entry into all events. Passes are $15 in advance and $25 day of Festival. Youth 17 & under, or with a valid high school ID get in FREE. All full-priced General Admission Passes include a $5 book fair voucher and entry into Portland Art Museum. Passes admit attendees to the Festival; individual events are first-come, first-served. More info here.

Eloisa Amezcua

Eloisa Amezcua is from Arizona. She is the author of Fighting Is Like a Wife, published by Coffee House Press in April 2022, and From the Inside Quietly (2018), inaugural winner of the Shelterbelt Poetry Prize selected by Ada Limón. A MacDowell fellow, Amezcua's poems and translations are published in New York Times Magazine, Poetry Magazine, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, and others. She is the Associate Director of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America and serves on the faculty of Randolph College's MFA program.
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Courtney Faye Taylor

Courtney Faye Taylor is a writer and visual artist. She is the author of Concentrate (Graywolf Press, 2022), selected by Rachel Eliza Griffiths as the winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Courtney earned her BA from Agnes Scott College and her MFA from the University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers’ Program where she received the Hopwood Prize in Poetry. A recipient of the 92Y Discovery Prize and an Academy of American Poets Prize, Courtney’s work can be found in Poetry Magazine, The Nation, Ploughshares, Best New Poets, and elsewhere.
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Anis Mojgani

Poet Laureate of Oregon Anis Mojgani is Oregon's current Poet Laureate and the author of five books of poetry. His work has appeared on HBO, NPR, and in journals Bat City Review, Rattle, Buzzfeed Reader, Thrush, and Forklift Ohio, amongst others. A two time National Poetry Slam Champion and winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam, Anis has done commissioned work for the Getty Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Portland Timbers, and has been awarded artist residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, AIR Serenbe, and the Bloedel Nature Reserve. Originally from New Orleans, Anis currently lives in Portland, OR, where he serves on the Board of Directors for Literary Arts. His latest collection is In the Pockets of Small Gods.
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