City of Asylum welcomes Kimiko Hahn, winner of the 2023 Ruth Lilly Prize, for a reading and discussion of the influence haiku poet Matsuo Bashō has had on her work, particularly The Narrow Road to the Interior. Matsuo Bashō is recognized as the greatest master of Haiku, legitimizing the art form and paving the way for poets like Kimiko Hahn to carry on and expand upon his legacy. 

This reading is part of the continued relaunch of the International Poetry Forum, a nonprofit organization that originally hosted over 800 poets, actors, and artists in Pittsburgh from 1966 to 2009. The 501(c)(3) was founded by and directed for 43 years by Samuel Hazo, inaugural state poet of Pennsylvania. 

Alumni of the International Poetry Forum represent more than 50 countries and include nine Nobel laureates, 14 Academy Award recipients, 28 U.S. Poets Laureate, 39 National Book Award winners, and 47 Pulitzer Prize winners—as well as a Princess, a Queen, and a Steelers Super Bowl MVP.

Past participants include figures such as Seamus Heaney, Gwendolyn Brooks, W.H. Auden, Jorge Luis Borges, Elizabeth Bishop, Derek Walcott, Tennessee Williams, Kurt Vonnegut, Chinua Achebe, Mary Oliver, Lucille Clifton, Anthony Hopkins, Danny Glover, Grace Kelly, James Earl Jones, and Queen Noor of Jordan. Complete information on past performers and the organization’s history is available on the International Poetry Forum’s website and Instagram.

COA is co-presenting this event with the International Poetry Forum, Carlow University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program, and Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshops.

You can purchase your own copy of Kimiko’s book, The Narrow Road to the Interior and other works, at City of Asylum Bookstore.

About the Poet:

Kimiko Hahn is author of ten collections of poetry, including The Ghost Forest: New & Selected Poems (W.W. Norton, 2024) which plays with given forms while creating new ones, and, in doing so, honors past writers. Previous books Toxic Flora and Brain Fever were prompted by fields of science; The Narrow Road to the Interior takes title and forms from Basho’s famous journals. Reflecting her interest in Japanese poetics, her essay on the zuihitsu was published in the American Poetry Review. In 2023, Kimiko was named a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets and received The Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly Lifetime Achievement Award. Additional honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, PEN/Voelcker Award, Shelley Memorial Prize, Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize, American Book Award, and NEA Fellowships. In her service to the field, she enjoys promoting chapbooks and has created a chapbook archive at the Queens College Library. Hahn is a distinguished professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation at Queens College, The City University of New York.

About Your Visit: 

The in-house restaurant Cucina Alfabeto is open for dinner from 5-9pm. Please visit Open Table or call 412-435-1111 to make a reservation.