This Thursday, April 15, highly acclaimed poet Li-Young Lee will present the annual Joshua Ringel Memorial Reading at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Taking place at 6:30 p.m. at the BMA, right around the corner from campus, and sponsored by the Center for Talented Youth, the Gilman School and the Teachers and Writers Collaborative, the seventh annual reading is sure to draw a crowd.
Lee settled in America with his family in 1964. He was born in 1957 in Indonesia to Chinese parents, as his great-grandfather was China's first republican president and and his father was a physician to Communist Mao Tse-Tung. After his father spent a year as a political prisoner in Indonesia, he escaped with his family to America.
Lee's writing focuses on themes that relate to his family and his experiences. He explores the nature of exile and the connection between a person, their native language and their adopted one. Other poems contain intimate recollections, such as his grandmother carrying him on her back to school. His work is highly anthologized and is curriculum for high schools and colleges across America. His books include Book of my Nights, Rose and The City in Which I Love You, which won the 1990 Lamont Poetry Selection, given by The Academy of American Poets, and the autobiography The Winged Seed.
The Joshua Ringel Memorial Fund was established in 1998 after Ringel passed away in a tragic motorcycle accident. The family hopes to keep the memory of their son and brother alive through "annual lectures and readings dedicated to education, poetry and imagination," as he was an English teacher in Spain and avid poetry lover. Other readings have been presented by Robert Pinsky, John Ashbery and Sharon Olds.
The reading and a reception taking place beginning at 5:45 p.m. are free and open to the public, with books open to purchase before and after the reading.
For more information, contact Charles Beckman of the Center for Talented Youth at (410) 516-0186 or charles.beckman@jhu.edu.
