Thursday Night’s Panelists
By hola | Published | No Comments
We have a wonderful group of panelists to lead the discussion following Thursday night’s premier of “El Idioma/Language.” Poets Naomi Ayala, Carlos Parada and Sami Miranda will join American University linguistics professor Luis Cerezo. Hola Cultura’s scholar, Olivia Cadaval, a curator at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, will moderate.
Naomi Ayala
Born in Puerto Rico, Naomi Ayala moved to the United States in her teens, eventually earning an MFA from the Bennington College Writing Seminars. Writing in both Spanish and English, she is author of the poetry collections Wild Animals on the Moon (1997), chosen by the New York City Public Library as a 1999 Book for the Teen Age, and This Side of Early (2008). Her poems have appeared in the anthologies Boriquén to Diasporican: Puerto Rican Poetry from Aboriginal Times to the New Millennium (2007), Latino Boom: An Anthology of U.S. Latino Literature (2006), and First Flight: 24 Latino Poets (2006). READ MORE about Naomi.
Luis Cerezo
is the Director, Spanish Language Program at American University. Cerezo’s research focuses on the development, implementation, and evaluation of audiovisual technology for language learning purposes. He is the author of Talking to Avatars, a computerized tutor that allows students to interact with pre-filmed actors to learn Spanish in real-life situations. His empirical studies show how computerized language learning is impacted by the type and target of instruction, with a focus on corrective feedback, as well as learners’ individual differences, bearing implications for the adoption of hybrid models of learning. Cerezo teaches courses in Spanish Linguistics, Translation, and Second Language Acquisition and Instruction. READ about Luis’ Talking to Avatars project.
Sami Miranda
is an educator, poet and visual artist who makes his home in Washington, DC. His work has been published in Full Moon on K St, the Chiron Review, DC Poets Against the War Anthology, MiPoesias.com and Beltway among others. He has performed at the Kennedy Center, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, The Arts Club of Washington, GALA Theatre, and other venues. Sami curated the Sabor Sunday reading series in Washington DC, bringing two poets, a trio of musicians and two visual artists into conversation, and is currently working with DC based artists and musicians to create collaborations between the arts. He develops and facilitates interactive poetry workshops for youth and adults and holds an MFA from The Bennington Writing Seminars. READ on of Sami’s poems on the Beltway Poetry Quarterly website.
Carlos Parada Ayala
A recipient of Washington, DC’s Commission on the Arts Larry Neal Poetry Award, Carlos Parada Ayala co-edited the anthology Al pie de la Casa Blanca: Poetas hispanos de Washington, DC, published by the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (New York, 2010.) Co-edited with Argentinean poet Luis Alberto Ambroggio, the US Library of Congress selected this anthology to celebrate 400 years of Hispanic poetry in the United States in September 2010. Parada Ayala is a member of the poetry collective Late Night Hour and is a founding member of ParaEsoLaPalabra, a collective of writers, artists and activists whose goal was to promote the arts, music and literature in the Spanish speaking communities of the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Parada Ayala has participated in El Salvador’s International Gathering of Poets, in the Festival of New Poetry and the Latin American Poetry Festival in New York, and in Washington DC’s Teatro de La Luna’s Poetry Marathon. His poetry has appeared in anthologies and cultural journals and has been included in the US Library of Congress’s poetry series The Poet and the Poem. His poetry book La luz de la tormenta/The Light of the Storm will be released by Zozobra Publishing in 2013. Parada Ayala graduated from Amherst College with a degree in Spanish, Latin American and Brazilian literature.. Listen to Carlos’s podcast with Luis Alberto Ambroggio, one of the poets featured in the web-documentary, “El Idioma/Language” we’ll be premiering Jan. 31.
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