Lovers of the spoken word have a choice of readings to attend tomorrow night (Thursday, Nov. 15).
Ilan Stavans will present a talk and book signing titled, "On Borrowed Words: A Personal Journey from Yiddish to Spanglish" at 7 p.m. in Room 4-231.
Stavans' latest book, "On Borrowed Words: A Memoir of Language," examines Yiddish, Spanish, Hebrew and English, each of which has at one time been the author's primary language. He reflects on his cultural heritage from his birth in Mexico through his years as a student activist, a young Zionist in Israel and a theology student in New York to his career as an academic and writer.
The event is part of the Foreign Languages and Literatures section' Center for Bilingual and Bicultural Studies series on "The Language of Power/The Power of Language." For more information, call x3-4771.
POETRY
Poet John Godfrey, who doubles as a public health nurse in pediatric infectious diseases, will present a poetry@mit reading on Thursday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. in Room 14E-304.
Born in 1945 in northern New York state, Godfrey attended schools throughout the country from Hawaii to Vermont, ultimately graduating from Princeton University.
A longtime resident of Manhattan's Lower East Side, he has taught at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church-on-the-Bowery and in 1984 was a poetry fellow of the General Electric Foundation in conjunction with the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines. He also works with homebound AIDS children in Brooklyn.
For more information, call x 3-7894 or e-mail poetry@mit.edu.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on November 14, 2001.
