Trees, Blood, and Circulatory Systems: A Poetry Reading by Old Tree

Inspired by Pamela Rosenkranz’s Plinth commission, Old Tree, the High Line presents Trees, Blood, and Circulatory Systems, a poetry reading on the High Line at the Spur as part of West Side Fest. The poetry reading brings together celebrated New York-based poets, whose writing practices touch on themes similar to those of Old Tree—the human body, circulatory systems, trees, and the connection between humans and nature, among others. Join us for an afternoon of poetry that intersects art, nature, and the human spirit.

The poetry reading will occur in two 45-minute sessions, with a 15-minute intermission in between. In the first reading session, The Body and Its Connections (3pm), poets will explore the harmonious relationship between the human body and the natural environment, revealing the symbiotic bonds we share with other species and our surroundings. The second, Nature, Trees, and Their Spiritual History (4pm), will feature readings that touch on the symbolism, cultural significance, and the spiritual history of trees, a narrative deeply rooted in our shared human experience.

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Organized by Constanza Valenzuela, Curatorial Assistant of High Line Art.

Featured poets:

Marissa Davis is a writer and translator from Paducah, Kentucky. Her poetry has appeared in Poetry, Poem-A-Day, Gulf Coast, Narrative, and Best New Poets, among other journals. Her translations have appeared in The Common, American Chordata, and The Offing, among others. Her chapbook, My Name & Other Languages I Am Learning How to Speak (Jai-Alai Books, 2020) was selected by Danez Smith for Cave Canem’s 2019 Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady Prize. Davis holds an MFA from New York University.

Megan Fernandes is a writer living in New York City. Fernandes has published in The New Yorker, POETRY, The Kenyon Review, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, among others. Her third book of poetry, I Do Everything I’m Told, was published by Tin House in June 2023. Fernandes is an Associate Professor of English and the Writer-in- Residence at Lafayette College where she teaches courses on poetry, environmental writing, and critical theory. She has received scholarships and fellowships from the Sewanee Writer’s Conference, the Yaddo Foundation, the Hawthornden Foundation, etc. She holds a PhD in English from the University of California, and an MFA in poetry from Boston University.

Nancy Huang grew up in Shanghai and near Detroit. Her poetry, plays, and prose are published by The Offing, poets.org, Asian American Writer’s Workshop’s The Margins, film distribution company A24, and others. They are a Voices/VONA, Watering Hole, Tin House, and Pink Door fellow. She has a poetry MFA from NYU. She works at a cemetery in Brooklyn.

Christopher Kondrich is the author of Valuing (University of Georgia Press, 2019), a winner of the National Poetry Series and a Library Journal best book of the year, and Contrapuntal (Free Verse Editions, 2013). His recent poetry appears or is forthcoming in AGNI, Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, The New York Review of Books, TriQuarterly, and The Yale Review. He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the I-Park Foundation, the University of Denver, and Columbia University. Co-editor of Creature Conserve: Writers Respond to the Science of Animal Conservation (University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming) and an associate editor for 32 Poems, he teaches poetry for Eastern Oregon University’s low-residency MFA program.

Deborah Landau is the author of five books of poetry: Skeletons; Soft Targets, winner of The Believer Book Award; The Uses of the Body; The Last Usable Hour; and Orchidelirium. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, APR, The Atlantic, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and The Best American Poetry, and she was a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. She is a Professor and Director of the Creative Writing Program at New York University.

Francisco Márquez is a poet from Maracaibo, Venezuela, born in Miami, Florida. His work has been featured in the Brooklyn Rail, The Yale Review, the Slowdown podcast, and the Best American Poetry anthology. He has received fellowships from The Poetry Project and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was a 2019 – 2020 Poetry Fellow. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

R. A. Villanueva is the author of Reliquaria, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize. New work has been featured by the Academy of American Poets, Ploughshares, Poetry, and on National Public Radio—and his writing appears widely in international publications such as Poetry London and The Poetry Review. His honors include commendations from the Forward Prizes and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and Kundiman. He lives in Brooklyn.

Sally Wen Mao is the author of the poetry collection The Kingdom of Surfaces (Graywolf Press, 2023), and the forthcoming fiction collection Ninetails (Penguin Books). She is also the author of two previous poetry collections, Oculus (Graywolf Press, 2019), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014). The recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, she was recently a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library and a Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute.

The High Line is thrilled to join the West Side Cultural Network—a group of more than 18 museums, parks, performing arts centers, and cultural institutions located within a half-mile portion of historic New York—to present the first-ever West Side Fest on Saturday, September 30, 2023, which includes Trees, Blood, and Circulatory Systems: A Poetry Reading by Old Tree.

West Side Fest is a free daylong, multi-site celebration bringing together the best of arts and culture on Manhattan’s West Side. For the inaugural festival, New Yorkers and visitors of all ages can enjoy free admission to participating museums and cultural institutions, and free activities, such as special indoor and outdoor programming, crafts and artmaking, and much more.

View the full schedule on westsidefest.nyc >