Duane Esposito & Ralph Nazareth: Friendship and Individuality In Defiance Of Time

Building on the their experience as co-presenters at last December’s “Poetry In Conversation” program at the Norwalk Library, this evening friends and academic colleagues Duane Esposito and Ralph Nazareth will be reading from their new collection, Dropping Death (Yuganta Press, 2018) at the Stamford Barnes & Noble bookstore this evening. 

Martin Buber (1878-1965)

Duane Esposito

In his write-up for the Colorado Review, poet Tim Wood draws particular attention to Dropping as a successful effort in its atypical commitment to honoring both, rather than suffusing either, contributors’ creative voices, such that “the point is… to bring them into orbit around one another. "

Ralph Nazareth

Among other interpretive lenses Wood applies in his examination is existentialist Martin Buber’s “I-Thou/I-It” dialectic in laying out how Duane and Ralph’s collaboration ties their friendship with an enthusiastic acknowledgement of that fundament of sapience, our sense of Self--and, by contrast, expressions of Otherness, be it in meeting a new neighbor, encountering different cultures, Death, or, in the sample below by Duane, the priorities of childhood: 

head inside to things

nearby—
the toys

& crumbs & crafts

& such—
& I

lie beside it all—
rub my kids’ bellies—

tell them the story

Duane Esposito is a Professor of English at Nassau Community College, (from where Ralph recently retired). Duane holds an MFA from the University of Arizona and has placed work in dozens of journals. Prior to Dropping Death, he has published three collections, including Cadillac Battleship (Broken Tribe Press, 2005) and Declaration for Your Bones (Yuganta, 2012). He also resides on Long Island with his family on Lopsided Farm.

Ralph has released several collections, and is a dedicated poet, publisher and teacher who has worked in academic, penal and community settings--including the Tuesday night PoemAlley group based in Stamford’s Curley’s Diner. His book Ferrying Secrets was originally released by Yugadi Publishers, Hyderabad, India in 2005 and is available through Ralph's Yuganta Press. Last year’s Between Us the Long Road was published through Owl Feather Collective as a fundraiser for GraceWorks, Inc., the international non-profit foundation Ralph manages (find out more here).

Hosted by Frank Chambers, Barnes & Noble’s Open Mic Poetry program meets the second Monday of each month in the music/DVD section on the main floor of the bookstore (located in the Stamford Town Center), beginning at 7:15 p.m.

For more information, contact:

Barnes & Noble

100 Greyrock Place, Suite H009

Stamford, CT 06906

203-323-1248