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Philly Loves Poetry - 55 Nov 2021
Cynthia Dewi Oka was born in Bali, Indonesia. Since 2012, she has been based in the Greater Philadelphia Area, Lennies Lenape Land, with her son and partner. She is the author of Fire Is Not a Country, Salvage, and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water and serves as a Poetry Editor at Kweli Journal. A 2021-2022 Poet in Residence at the Amy Clampitt House in Lenox, MA she has been awarded the Leeway Foundation's Transformation Award, the Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize, and the Fifth Wednesday Journal Editor's Prize in Poetry.
Cynthia has taught creative writing at Bryn Mawr College and literary/arts organizations including Murphy Writing of Stockton University, The Blue Stoop, and Asian Arts Initiative, with whom she partnered in the aftermath of the 2016 election to offer Sanctuary: A Migrant Poetry Workshop for immigrant poets based in Philadelphia.
She has served as a visiting Distinguished Writer at Widener University and conducted Workshops and readings at Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, The New School, New York University, Swarthmore College, and Williams College among others. Featuring Cynthia Dewi Oka, and their newest collection of work "Fire is Not a Country".
Hosted by Charles S. Carr
Recorded November 9th, 2021.
Philly Loves Poetry consists of a panel of guest poets and artists discussing the opportunities which their group or organization provides for poets in Philly as well as the themes that influence them.
