Three Cultures In A Single Spirit

Linguistically and culturally straddling the Old and New Worlds with enthusiasm, tomorrow’s Open Mic speaker at the Stamford Barnes & Noble, Sophie Marinez, writes and performs poetry in three languages and is a professor of French and Spanish at the City University of New York, where she is active with the internationally-based Writers Studio workshop program, located in Greenwich Village.

Santo Domingo Carnival

Identifying herself as a French-Dominican New Yorker, Sophie was born in France of a French mother and Dominican father in exile, later to relocate to the Dominican Republic when she was seven. 

Lyon Festival of Lights

Save for a two-year diplomatic post in Mexico as Cultural Counselor at the Embassy of the Dominican Republic, Sophie has lived in New York City since 1994, where her academic specialties include early modern French literature, Dominican-American literature and identity. Her past inter-cultural work also lends considerable sensitivity to her scholarship into Haitian-Dominican relations.

Her interest in the human commonalities of varied forms of  expression likewise informs this darkly comedic snippet:

from 

"Carnival Day in Santo Domingo"

Diablos Cojuelos!

Limping Devils,

who had been thrown out of hell

and had broken a leg,

leapt with huge, horned

grimacing heads,

brightly dressed in silky red,

tiny mirrors and shiny sleigh bells…

In addition to her Ph. D. in French, Sophie received a degree in translation from the Universidad Apec in Santo Domingo, as well as a degree in acting from the School of Performing Arts of Santo Domingo. 

Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, the Barnes & Noble Open Mic Poetry program meets the second Monday of each month in the cookbook section on the main floor of the bookstore (located in the Stamford Town Center), beginning at 7:00 p.m.

  

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place Suite H009

Stamford, CT 06901

203-323-1248