Have you ever read poetry that uses fieldwork and archives to deal with important social and political concerns? Come hear three acclaimed poets who employ research and reporting to grapple with such timely issues, as immigration, identity, cultural appropriation, racism, and the military- and prison-industrial complexes. Their works intersect with the social sciences, drawing on anthropology, sociology, history, media studies, education, psychology, political science, and law.

Susan Briante’s latest work, Defacing the Monument—winner of the Poetry Foundation’s Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism in 2021—was called “a superb examination of the ethical issues facing artists who tell others’ stories” and a “dazzlingly inventive and searching text” by Publishers Weekly. The book integrates legal documents, maps, photographs, and archival evidence, in a literary work of lyric, memoir, and essay writing. It begins with a court hearing from Operation Streamline, an initiative launched under President George W. Bush, which has criminally prosecuted undocumented immigrants in mass trials of up to 80 people at a time. Briante also serves as the co-coordinator of the Southwest Field Studies in Writing Program, which brings MFA students to the US-Mexico border to engage in reciprocal research projects with community-based environmental and social justice groups.