Dawn Lundy Martin and Rosie Stockton Reading at The Poetry Project

When living under a state of permanent crisis, containment is shattered, the self is made brutally porous to air, ashes, and rents too high to afford. Yet our attachment to destruction runs unforgivingly deep. When Dawn Lundy Martin and Rosie Stockton speak of love, they speak of its blooming contradictions. Between sweet surrender and the blur of desire, their lyricism is one that asks “How many people does it take to make a person?” (Dawn Lundy Martin)

Dawn Lundy Martin is an American poet and essayist. Martin co-founded and directed the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics at the University of Pittsburgh and is now Professor and Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College. Her most recent book of poems, Instructions for The Lovers, was published by Nightboat, and her memoir, When a Person Goes Missing, is forthcoming from Pantheon Books.

Rosie Stockton is the author of Fuel (Nightboat Books, 2025) and Permanent Volta (Nightboat Books 2021). They hold an M.A. in Creative Writing from Eastern Michigan University and are currently a Ph.D. Candidate in the Gender Studies Department at UCLA. Rosie lives and works in Los Angeles.

Guest introductions by Jimin Seo and Nora Treatbaby.