2:00pm
FILM
View W. S. Merwin: To Plant A Tree (Stefan Schaefer, 2006, 60 min.), part of the film series Hawai'i Past and Present, curated by Kris Kato, a New York-based keiki o ka `āina (child of the land) working in film education.
This documentary examines the life and work of Poet Laureate, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and environmental activist W.S. Merwin. In interviews filmed in Hawai`i, France, and on several reading tours, Merwin's environmental activism and poetry are on full display, with humorous insights into the human experience and the relevance of poetry in our lives today.
Ross Hall
New York Botanical Garden
2900 Southern Boulevard
Bronx, NY 10458-5126
3:15pm
PERFORMANCE: POETRY AND HAWAIIAN CHANTS
PSA Executive Director Alice Quinn will introduce a performance in conjunction with the exhibition Georgia O'Keeffe Visions of Hawai'i and its corresponding poetry walk, a set of poems that explore the Hawaiian islands, curated by poet Lisa Linn Kanae. Actor Patrick Breen will read this selection, which includes poems by Puanani Burgess, Juliet S. Kono, Brandy Nālani McDougall, W. S. Merwin, Sage U'ilani Takehiro, and Kahikāhealani Wright. Kainoa Embernate, an educator of Hawaiian language and culture from Hilo, Hawaiʻi, will perform a set of kindred Hawaiian chants, guided by the natural rhythms of a day's progress into night and the influence of our universe's ecosystems.
Patrick Breen is an actor and writer, known for Galaxy Quest (1999), Men in Black (1997) and Whole Day Down (2011).
Kainoa Embernate is an educator of Hawaiian language and culture from Hilo, Hawaiʻi, and the Founder and Director of Hālau ʻŌlelo: Hawaiian Language Worldwide. He is a source to cultural practitioners, culinarians, performing artists, writers, filmmakers and scholars looking to grow Hawaiian, Polynesian, and Oceanic presence in New York City and around the world.
Lisa Linn Kanae was born and raised in Kapahulu, Oahu, and is of Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino descent. She is the author of the short story collection Islands Linked by Ocean (2009) and the hybrid chapbook Sista Tongue (2003). In 2010, Kanae received the Cades Emerging Writer Award for Literature. She teaches at Kapiʻolani Community College.
Free and open to the public.
Conservatory Plaza
New York Botanical Garden
2900 Southern Boulevard
Bronx, NY 10458-5126
