Our second annual Earth Day Reading took place on Thursday, April 22nd, from 6-9pm on both Zoom and Youtube, featuring numerous moving and poignant readings. Our director, Alexis Bhagat, opened the reading with a land acknowledgement honoring the Mohican and Mohawk peoples who first called and continue to call this place home.
“Life gives us a duty to live in harmony with one another and with all other living things. We commit ourselves to building a more inclusive, equitable and just future by honoring our indigenous ancestors, past and present.”
Opening land acknowledgement
The FFAPL Earth Day reading was organized into five sections, different approaches to honoring our beloved planet Earth:
- Land and the City
- River and the Waters
- People and the Animals
- Wind and the Air
- and the Future.
We are grateful to everyone who attended and read. Please find a full reader list below, plus some links for the readings.
A Reading for the Land and the City
- Hon. Kathy Sheehan, Mayor of Albany read from Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
- Melanie Metzger, Assistant Director of Albany Public Library read Kendra Pierre-Louis’ essay “Wakanda Doesn’t Have Suburbs” from the book All We Can Save (Request It)
- Lauren Moore, NYS Librarian read The Bees by Audre Lorde [Full Text]
A Reading for the River and the Waters
- Daniel Kirk-Davidoff, Atmospheric Scientist, read from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Request It)
- Dan Wilcox, Poet, read two of his own poems. One was from the anthology Ghost Fishing titled “Water”; and another was titled “The Water Planet”.
- Ramona Cearly, from Riverkeeper, read an excerpt from Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Request It)
- Susan Pedo, Poet, read Sonnet 60 by Shakespeare [Full Text]
- Kenneth Hada, Poet, read from his own work, from the poetry collection The River White which also includes watercolors by Duane Hada. He also read from his poetry collection Persimmon Sunday.
A Reading for the People and the Animals
- Lucyna Prostko, Poet, read poems from her new manuscript. Poems included “The Place of My Childhood”; “After a Long Illness”; and “Flight”
- Matthew Burns, Poet, read poems from his new collection called Imagine the Glacier
- Tiffany Higgins, Poet, read two poems including “Green World” by the Indigenous Brazilian writer Marcia Kambeba, which Tiffany translated from Portuguese [Full Text]
- Dan Wilcox, Poet, read Song 31, from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself [Full Text]
- Gretchen Primack, read from her newly published poetry collection, Kind
A Reading for the Wind and the Air
- Jill Szwed, Meteorologist, opened the section the wind with text of the Beaufort Wind Force Scale
- Allie Middleton, poet and author read from her own work in A Wayfinder’s Wanderings and spoke about the work of the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy
- Lukee Forbes, Local Activist, read the poem “The Forest’s Blessed Abode” by Belinda Stotler [Full Text]
A Reading for the Future
- Pippa Bartolotti read an excerpt from her fortchoming book, Poetic Symmetry
- Preem Cabey read from the book In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens by Alice Walker (Request It)
- Christian Simmons, Student from Meyers Leo Club, read the poem Maps by Yesenia Montilla [Full Text]
- Egypt Snipe, Student from Meyers Leo Club, read the poem Tapestry by Leslie Elaine Greenwood [Full Text]
- Rahshid Ford, Student from Meyers Leo Club, read from his own work
- Jayohcee, hip-hop artist from the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation, read his rhyme, Stay Woke, as well as a brand new poem that he wrote this evening.
See you all next year, live and in-person!
