Poetry Symposium at the Flushing Town Hall

Poetry Symposium at the heart of downtown Flushing, at the Gallery Space in the Flushing Town Hall

Featuring: Carlie Hoffman, Mitchell Glazier, Ananda Naima González, India Lena González, Marie La Viña, Jonathan Memmert, Darius Phelps, and Emily Stutz


Join Carlie Hoffman, Mitchell Glazier, Ananda Naima González, India Lena González, Marie La Viña, Jonathan Memmert, Darius Phelps, and Emily Stutz at the Queens Poetry Symposium at the Flushing Town Hall Gallery on November 3, 2024 at 5 p.m. This is one of the first poetry symposia in the borough of Queens and promises an evening of panels on place and emotion, as we look to personal and familial histories and mythologies outside of the Western canon to delve into the lyrical possibilities of imagination with examples by other poets, and performances of poems written by the panelists.

Ananda Naima González is a writer, educator, multidisciplinary artist, and performer residing in Harlem, NY. She carries a BA and an MFA from Columbia University, in poetry and fiction respectively, and has taught at both Columbia and Gotham Writers Workshop. She currently serves as a poetry mentor with the Young Artists Language and Devotion Alliance (YALDA) and as editor-at-large of Milk Press. Her words have appeared in BOMB, McSweeney’s, Catapult, Apogee, The Southern Review, Bellingham Review, Lampblack, Waxing & Waning, and Twin Bird Review. She has been a finalist for awards granted by Gulf Coast Journal, LitMag, Indiana Review, and SmokeLong Quarterly, among others. Her mission is to honor the inherently sacred ritual of living. In addition to writing, she is also a professionally trained dancer and an accomplished choreographer and filmmaker. 

India Lena González is a poet, editor, and multidisciplinary artist. She received her BA from Columbia University and her MFA from New York University. Her work is published in American Chordata, the Brooklyn Review, Harvard Review, Lampblack, Literary Hub, Milk Press, PANK, Pigeon Pages, and Poetry Northwest, among others, and it has been featured on the Slowdown podcast. fox woman get out! (BOA Editions, 2023), chosen by Aracelis Girmay as part of the Blessing the Boats Selections, is her debut poetry collection and was a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. A three-time National Poetry Series finalist, India is also a professionally trained dancer, choreographer, and actor and has had the pleasure of performing at Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, St. Mark’s Church, La Mama, New York Live Arts, the New York City Poetry Festival, the Poetry Project, and other such venues. She has taught at Columbia University and NYU, as well as for the Poetry Society of New York, and has worked as a teaching artist for Teachers & Writers Collaborative. She currently serves as the features editor of Poets & Writers Magazine, where she has worked for the past five years.

Marie La Viña is a writer based in Astoria, NY. She holds an MFA from Columbia University, and her work has appeared in Prelude and MoMA Magazine. She currently teaches Personal Histories, a generative writing workshop, with Katarina La Poll. Past honors include a fellowship from Kundiman and a George Bogin Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. Lately, Marie enjoys tai chi and riding her kick scooter.

Jonathan Memmert is a poet and writer who resides in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in NY City and has an MFA in Creative Writing from The City College of New York. His poetry has been published in Anti Heroin Chic, Heavy Feather Review Side A, Fourthreethree, Global City Review, 1455 Movable Type, Promethean Literary Journal, Artediolia: Swifts & Slows, The Closed Eye Open, and WILDsounds. He has read his poetry at WordshedNYC events and at the NY City Poetry Festival annual event for the past several years. He is currently the associate editor for the online poetry journal for emerging poets, The Marbled Sigh. 

Darius Phelps is a PhD Candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University, Anaphora Arts Fellow,  and 2023 Recipient of the NCTE Early Career Educator of Color Award. He is the Assistant Director of Programs under The Center for Publishing & Applied Liberal Arts (PALA) department at NYU. An educator, poet, spoken word artist, and activist, Darius writes poems about grief, liberation, emancipation, reflection through the lens of a teacher of color and experiencing Black boy joy. He serves as Poetry co- editor for Matter and an Associate Editor for Tupelo Quarterly. His  work and poems have appeared in the School Library Journal, NY English Record, NCTE English Journal, English Quarterly, Pearl Press Magazine, ëëN Magazine, and many more. Recently, he was featured on WCBS and highlighted the importance of Black male educators in the classroom

Emily Stutz earned her A.B. in English Literature and History from Washington University in St. Louis and her M.S. in Social Work from Columbia University. For many years, she provided counseling to families, individuals, and groups. She eventually switched to hospital work, in which she covered open heart surgery, emergency medicine, maternity, neonatal intensive care, and pediatric AIDS. Emily has read and written poetry since childhood, but this tapered off due to both the demands of her profession and raising a family. It was while living in New Zealand that she began to develop a daily practice of reading, writing, and discussing poetry. She is currently at work on her first collection of poems as well as a personal essay about the forty-year impact of predatory student loans, and is writing a memoir about being raised in the Evangelical South by a traumatized single mother who suffered from hoarding disorder. Emily credits the life-saving impact of devoted teachers, close childhood friends, and books, particularly poetry, with helping her through.

This program is made possible with public funds from the Queens Arts Fund, a re-grant program supported by New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by New York Foundation for the Arts.