Albert Abonado, 2024-25
Albert Abonado is a poet and essayist. He is the author of the poetry collection JAW (Sundress Publications 2020) and the forthcoming Field Guide for Accidents (Beacon Press 2024), selected by Mahogany Browne for the National Poetry Series. He has received fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. His writing has appeared in the Bennington Review, Colorado Review, Poetry Northwest, Zone 3, and others. Abonado is the Editor-in-Chief of the Bare Hill Review and the Fall 2024 Artist-in-Residence at SUNY Oswego. He lives and teaches in Rochester, NY.
About the Project
Albert's Artist-in-Residence project thinks deeply about our relationship with names. Our names have cultural, political, and familial implications. They are complicated symbols in our lives. Throughout the semester, Albert is exploring these concepts through community poetry workshops and an open call for members of our community to submit information about their names that he will respond to through original poems.
Final Project
Roll Call: The Stories of Our Names
Saturday, March 1st, 10AM-4PM
Oswego Public Library
Join us as we celebrate Albert Abonado’s tenure as SUNY Oswego’s artist-in-residence with a day filled with art, conversations, and readings that explore the different dimensions of names and naming.
A tentative schedule for the day includes:
Namedrop Poetry Workshops
What is in a name? A name can be a link to a cultural history or a burden that must be shouldered. It can signal joy and strength or act as a symbol of grief. What is the story behind the names we were given?
In these workshops, SUNY Oswego’s Artist-in-Residence Albert Abonado will discuss the profound histories of our names and how they can define our experiences. What do we do with the names we are given? How do we choose to carry those names? Following the conversation, Albert will lead a generative poetry workshop where participants will have an opportunity to write poems that explore the rich meanings behind their names.
Thursday, October 24th, 4-5:30PM. Presented in partnership with SUNY Oswego's Institute for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Transformative Practice.
Saturday, November 2nd, 10AM-12PM. Presented in partnership with the Oswego Public Library.