Celebrate Mohawk Culture with Poetry & Dinner
Poetry and music in English and Mohawk
Dinner catered by Native Sisters Harvest
Featuring the poetry of James Stevens & the music of Theresa “Bear” Fox & Kontiwenenhawi, Carriers of the Words
Friday, December 12th, 6:00 – 9:00pm
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery, Manhattan (between Houston St. and Bleecker St.)
$35.00 for General Admission
$25.00 for City Lore members, seniors, and students
Space is limited, please purchase tickets by Friday, December 5th.
To purchase tickets please call City Lore at 212.529.1955 ext 305 or 306.
In 2001, Place Matters worked to successfully nominate Brooklyn’s Cuyler Church, a center for American Indian community life in New York City from the 1930s-1960s, to the National Register of Historic Places. Boerum Hill, then known as North Gowanus, was affectionately termed “Downtown Caughnawaga” by a community of Mohawks and others who made the neighborhood their “home away from home.” Having developed a particular skill for ironwork at great heights as bridge builders, Mohawks from the Kahnawake and Akwesasne reservations near the Canadian border began to work in New York City in the 1920s. They helped build many of the city’s most iconic structures–the Hell Gate, the George Washington and Verrazano-Narrows Bridges, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Seagram Building, and scores of others. We invite you to join us as City Lore celebrates the Mohawk community in a different way, this time with a Mohawk Poetry Dinner.
This program will feature traditional songs as well as contemporary poetry and songs both in the English and Mohawk language. There will also be a meal catered by Native Sisters Harvest which will include succulent meat pies, traditional corn soup, and a Mohawk strawberry delight.
The participants are:
Theresa Fox has lived in Akwesasne for forty years, and is part of a woman’s singing group called “Kontiwenenhawi” which means Carriers of the Words. The women’s group, which includes Elizabeth Nanitcoke and Yvonne Peters, originated as the Women’s Singing Society from Akwesasne. A singing society is charged with the responsibility of giving assistance and support to those in the community who have suffered a loss. Theresa is also involved with the Akwesasne Freedom School which was started in 1979 with the intent to preserve the Mohawk langauge.
James Thomas Stevens is the author of eight books of poetry, including, Combing the Snakes from His Hair (Michigan State UP), Mohawk/Samoa: Transmigrations (subpress), A Bridge Dead in the Water (Salt Publishing) and Bulle/Chimère (First Intensity Press), as well as journal and anthology publications. He is a member of the Akwesasne Mohawk tribe, holds an MFA from Brown University and is a 2000 Whiting Award recipient and a 2005 National Poetry Series finalist. He currently teaches English and Native American Studies at the State University of New York at Fredonia.
Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and The Scherman Foundation. Special thanks to the American Indian Community House.