Calendar of Events

Poetry in the Garden: Martin Espada and Anni Liu

Declarations 2025 - Immigrant Voices

July 14, 2025 · 7 p.m.
Walled Garden
Free

Commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence with "Poetry in the Garden: Declarations 2025." Each Monday evening in July, nationally acclaimed poets will share works that explore how historically marginalized groups have been denied the Declaration of Independence's promise of equality and inalienable rights.

On July 14, “Poetry in the Garden: Declarations 2025” welcomes two poets whose work reflects the tenuous experience of immigrants and refugees: National Book Award winner Martin Espada, an outspoken advocate of Latino rights, and Anni Liu, a young poet whose Border Vista was a New York Times Best Poetry Book. A Q&A session and book signing will follow.

Free for all! Bring a lawn chair or blanket to enjoy the readings, held in KTM&HC’s beautiful walled garden. A Q&A session will follow each reading; poets’ books will be available for signing. In the event of inclement weather, the reading will move inside the Garden House.

Martín Espada has published more than 20 books as a poet, editor, essayist, and translator. His newest book of poems is Jailbreak of Sparrows; his previous book, Floaters, won the 2021 National Book Award and a Massachusetts Book Award. His other collections include Vivas to Those Who Have Failed, The Republic of Poetry, and Alabanza, the title poem of which has been widely anthologized. Espada has received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the PEN/Revson Fellowship, a Letras Boricuas Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. A former tenant lawyer, Espada is a professor of English at UMass-Amherst.

Born in the year of the metal goat, Anni Liu is the author of Border Vista (Persea Books), which won the Lexi Rudnitsky Prize and was a New York Times Best Poetry Book of 2022. She’s the recipient of an Undocupoets Fellowship, a Djanikian Scholarship from the Adroit Journal, and residencies at Civitella Ranieri and the Anderson Center. She's an editor at Graywolf Press and lives in Philadelphia.

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