Rhina P. Espaillat 2010 Keynote Speaker

Rhina P. Espaillat has published seven full-length books and three chapbooks. She is the recipient of the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, the Wilbur Award, the Nemerov Prize, three of the yearly awards given by the Poetry Society of America, several awards from the New England Poetry Club, and the “Tree at My Window” Award from the Robert Frost Foundation, as well as awards from the Dominican Republic's Ministry of Culture. In addition to her poems, short stories and essays in English, Espaillat writes in her native Spanish, and has published translations in both languages, notably of Robert Frost and Saint John of the Cross. Her two most recent books are a bilingual collection of poems and essays, Agua de dos rios, published in 2006, and El olor de la memoria: cuentos/The Scent of Memory: Short Stories, a bilingual collection of stories published in 2007 by the Dominican Center for Bibliographical Studies, Inc.

You Who Sleep Soundly Through Our Bleakest Hour

You who sleep soundly through our bleakest hour,

who hear the meekest cry, and turn away,

who ride the river, blessing it with power

to cancel what we’ve made day by slow day;

You whom we cannot know nor flee, who hide

behind your countless aliases, who bear

the weapon of your absence like a tide

against our helplessness, and fail to care;

You who stand by while madness picks the lock,

stroke cuts the wires, tumor rigs the mine:

Look how we scour the earth to find—in rock,

in fire, in word—your signature, some sign

of you in thought that quarrels with your will,

and as it quarrels, hungers for you still.

To learn more about Rhina P. Espaillat and read her work, visit: http://www.thehypertexts.com/Rhina_P_Espaillat_Poet_Poetry_Picture_Bio.htm