Poetry month to kick off
Published 3:12 pm Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Lilly Ledbetter is the retired supervisor who sued Goodyear when, after nearly 20 years with the company her pay was 13 to 29 percent less than her male counterparts. She lost the suit on a technicality – because it wasn’t filed within 180 days of her last paycheck – but inspired the 2009 legislation that was intended to ensure equal pay, regardless of gender. Census data show that in the years since the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed into law, women’s pay has continued to average 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. In response, poets Carolyne Wright, Eugenia Toledo, and M. L. Lyons, edited the inspiring anthology Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Poets Occupy the Workspace (Lost Horse Press, 2015), which will premiere at the April Artsmith reading at Darvill’s
The anthology brings together voices of women poets in the workspaces they occupy: from cotton rows to corner suites, trawlers to typing pools, nursing stations to space stations, factory floors to faculty offices.
Join Wright for the premiere reading of this important work at Artsmith’s Salon Series on Wednesday, April 1, 6 p.m. at Darvill’s Bookstore. To kickoff April Poetry Month, Wright will read from the new anthology as well as some of her other books, including Mania Klepto: the Book of Eulene (Turning Point Books, 2011), followed by question and answer with the poet, and a reception with refreshments and book-signing.
