Naomi Ayala Reading

At Montgomery College

April 2, 2003, 7 p.m

Contact:  Paul Peck Humanities Institute:  301-251-7417

                Judy Gaines:  301-251-7452

 Montgomery College’s Books and Ideas Features Naomi Ayala

Date:  April 2, 2003

Time:  7 p.m.

Location:  Montgomery College, Rockville Campus

51 Mannakee St.

Rockville Books and More

Campus Center

The Paul Peck Humanities Institute at Montgomery College through its Books and Ideas will feature poet Naomi Ayala on April 2, 2003 on the Rockville Campus.  Books and Ideas is a series of six literary events celebrating the work of local historians, critics, poets, or novelists of influence and stature.

Naomi Ayala is the author of one book of poetry, Wild Animals on the Moon, selected by the New York City Public Library as one of 1999’s Books for the Teen Age.  Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies around the U.S. and beyond – among them, Callaloo, The Village Voice, The Caribbean Writer, The Massachusetts Review, Red River and Potomac Reviews, Hanging Loose, and Terra Incognita.

“Ayala’s poems are bold, surrealistic, freewheeling.  She plays with placement on the page.  She pares punctuation and capitalization, and often uses enjambment to propel her text forward . . .Ayala is courageous in the agenda she sets for herself:  racism, poverty, immigration, relationships and separation, the power of words, the struggles of women, and violence in individual lives, in neighborhoods, and in other countries. . .Her voice is at times soft, at times ferocious.  She is a woman who will be heard.” 

--Margaret Huntington, “Ruptured Lives,” American Book Review

In 2002-2003, Books and Ideas brings Hilary Tham, Michael Dirda, Lisa Couturier, Naomi Ayala, Robert Giron, Teresa Bevin, and Joyce Reiser Kornblatt to Montgomery College.