IAWA Presents Award-Winning Poets and Professors Anne Marie Macari and Robert Viscusi

The Italian American Writers Association (IAWA) presents two award-winning poets - Anne Marie Macari and Robert Viscusi, founding member and President of IAWA, both of whom were born in Queens, New York.

Anne Marie Macari's most recent book, She Heads Into the Wilderness, was published in 2008 by Autumn House Press. Of Wilderness, Alicia Ostriker writes, "Our world needs poetry that can speak openly of body and spirit-their desire to live.... Line by line, phrase by phrase, take pleasure and wisdom from Anne Marie Macari's radiant poems."

Robert Viscusi a professor at Brooklyn College and Executive Director of The Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, has published Astoria: A Novel (Guernica, 1995; American Book Award 1996), An Oration upon the Most Recent Death of Christopher Columbus (longpoem, VIA Folios, 1993), A New Geography of Time (poems, Guernica , 2004), Buried Caesars, and Other Secrets of Italian American Writing (critical history, SUNY Press, 2006; Premio Giuseppe Acerbi, 2008.

The evening starts with Open Mic readings of five minutes each. Since 1991, the organization has given voice to writers through its Open Reading series at Cornelia St. Café every month.