Sponsored by the ESU New York City Branch
Poetry tugs at our emotions and affects each of us differently. Listening to versus reading poetry can create different images and thoughts even for the same poem. Join this special ESU Happy Hour when we bring four award-winning poets together to share their love of poetry—Karen Karpowich, Susana Case, Meredith Trede, and Peter Nickowitz. Our poets will be reading their own poems in a round-robin program covering topics such as love, aging, film, travel, art, family, food, and elegy. These poems will inspire us, give us emotional strength and perspectives on our lives. This is a Happy Hour you will want to share with the whole family. Invite your friends to this extraordinary ESU Happy Hour program.
Be sure to read the bios on the four poets including our own ESU Executive Director, Karen Karpowich. This ESU Happy Hour is sponsored by the ESU New York City Branch. ESU Happy Hour programs are online, free, and open to all members and the public. Registration is required.
Karen Karpowich’s work has appeared in the Red River Review, Mudfish, In the Orange Room and in the anthologies, An Eye for an Eye Makes the Whole World Blind and If the World Was Your Classroom What Would You Teach a Girl. Her poem, In Central Park was featured at The Symphony Space event commemorating the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Her other works include, A Poem Against the War that inspired the creation of a new symphony by the Dutch composer, Harrie Janssen. Karen is the Executive Director of the English-Speaking Union of the United States.
Susana Case has authored nine books of poetry, most recently If This Isn’t Love, 2023. She has won several book awards, including multiple Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards, and she was a Finalist twice and an Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, as well as Finalist for the American Book Fest Awards, and the International Book Awards. The first of her five chapbooks, The Scottish Café, was re-released in an English-Polish version, Kawiarnia Szkocka, and an English-Ukrainian edition, Шотландська Кав’ярня, was published in January, 2024. Case co-edited, with Margo Taft Stever, the anthology I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe.
Meredith Trede has three poetry collections: Bringing Back the House, Tenement Threnody, and Field Theory, and, as a Toadlily Press founder, a chapbook, Out of the Book. Her extensive journal publications include Barrow Street, The Feminist Wire, Friends Journal, Gargoyle, A Gathering of Tribes, and The Paris Review. She has held residencies at Blue Mountain Center, Ragdale, Saltonstall, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Virginia and France.
Peter Nickowitz is the author of a collection of poetry, Cinema Vernacular, which was a finalist for the National Poetry Series, and a literary critical book, Rhetoric and Sexuality: The Poetry of Hart Crane, Elizabeth Bishop, and James Merrill. In addition to poetry, Peter writes plays and screenplays. His feature-length screenplay, Jonathan, was made into a film starring Ansel Elgort, Patricia Clarkson, Suki Waterhouse, and Matt Bomer. Jonathan premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, was released theatrically by Well Go Entertainment, and is currently streaming on Netflix.
Cocktail: Manhattan
As a salute to New York City, our Happy Hour cocktail is:
The Manhattan:
2 ounces rye whiskey
1 ounce sweet vermouth
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Garnish: brandied cherry (or lemon twist, if preferred)
Directions:
Pour the whiskey, sweet vermouth and bitters into a mixing glass filled with ice.
Stir until the mixing glass is very cold to touch.
Place ice and cherry in a rocks glass, then strain the shaker over the fresh ice.