Portland’5 Centers for the Arts and The Attic Institute of Arts and Letters present Poets on Broadway – a free poetry series hosted by Portland’5. Three monthly poetry events will be presented December 2016 – May 2017 in the Antoinette Hatfield Hall rotunda. Nationally renowned poets will read alongside local emerging poets in the greater Portland community and the Pacific Northwest. Portland’5 presents Poets on Broadway with Elizabeth Woody and David Biespiel at Antoinette Hatfield Hall Monday, May 22, 2017 at 7:30pm.

Elizabeth A. Woody is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Oregon, of Yakama Nation descent, and is “born for” the Tódích’íinii (Bitter Water clan) of the Navajo Nation. Her paternal grandfather’s clan is Mą’ii deeshgiizhinii (Coyote Pass – Jemez clan). She received the American Book Award in 1990, and the William Stafford Memorial Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the Oregon Book Awards in 1995. Elizabeth has published three books of poetry. She also writes short fiction, essays, and is a visual artist.

She earned a Master of Public Administration degree through the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government’s Executive Leadership Institute of Portland State University, a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities from The Evergreen State College and studied Creative Writing and Two-Dimensional Arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She has taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts and at Portland State University.

Elizabeth is alumna of the first Kellogg Foundation’s Fellowship through AIO’s Ambassadors program. She leads writing workshops, lectures and has served on multi- disciplinary art fellowship jury panels for several foundations and arts organizations nationally. Elizabeth Woody is presently on the Board of Directors of Soapstone: Celebrating Women Writers, and Willamette University Advisory Council for Native Programs located in Salem, Oregon.

“Her poems are like hands and hearts and also like lights: they grip and pulse and illuminate. Like the woman herself, the work is grand and modest and forceful. It will shake you, and move you deeply….”–The Bloomsbury Review

“Woody follows in the tradition of peoples who have understood the power of language, and the place of a poet/singer/storyteller at the center of the world.”–Joy Harjo

David Biespiel is the author of ten books, most recently Charming Gardeners and The Book of Men and Women, which was chosen one of the Best Books of the Year by the Poetry Foundation and received the Stafford/Hall Award. His books of essays include Every Writer Has a Thousand Faces and A Long High Whistle: Selected Columns on Poetry, which received the Frances Fuller Victor Award. He is a contributing writer at The Rumpus and American Poetry Review,  and has published in Politico, New Republic, Slate, Poetry, Partisan, and The New York Times, among other publications. Recipient of Lannan, National Endowment for the Arts, and Stegner fellowships, he is a longtime faculty member in the MFA program at the School of Writing, Literature, and Film at Oregon State University and also in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA Program. He is the President of the Attic Institute of Arts and Letters.

All readings begin at 7:30pm in the Antoinette Hatfield Hall rotunda- located at 1111 SW Broadway Ave., Portland, OR 97205. The ArtBar & Bistro will be open with food and drinks available to purchase.