The upcoming salons will feature internationally acclaimed poets Lemn Sissay, Rajiv Mohabir and Airea Matthews, whose works, spanning poetry, memoir and translation, explore themes of identity, social inequity and cultural heritage. Their work has earned them numerous prestigious accolades and prominent roles in academia and the arts.

With an emphasis on becoming community, faculty and academic professionals engage with invited artists and one another in this spirited monthly series. All spring 2025 salons will be held from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Prospect House. The series is co-sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Faculty and the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity.

Spring 2025 Faculty Diversity Salons Schedule

Lemn Sissay

Poet, playwright and broadcaster

Friday, Jan. 31

An international prize-winning poet, playwright, artist and broadcaster, Lemn Sissay’s work interprets the world around him in a voice discovered through adversity and hardship. The author of more than a dozen books and numerous plays, Sissay served as chancellor of the University of Manchester from 2015 to 2022. He was awarded an MBE for services to literature by Queen Elizabeth II and an OBE for services to literature by King Charles III. Sissay also has received the PEN Pinter Prize and a Points of Light Award from the prime minister of the United Kingdom, among other awards and recognitions. He is a trustee of London’s Foundling Museum. 

Rajiv Mohabir

Poet, memoirist, translator and professor

Friday, Feb. 28

An award-winning poet, memoirist, translator and professor, Rajiv Mohabir explores identity and heritage through multilingual, intersectional works. His books include “The Taxidermist’s Cut,” “The Cowherd’s Son,” “Cutlish,” and “Whale Aria,” which have earned accolades such as the Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur and finalist honors for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Mohabir’s memoir “Antiman” received the Forward Indies Award for LGBTQ+ Nonfiction and was a PEN Open Book Award finalist. A celebrated translator, his work on “I Even Regret Night” won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award. With a doctorate in English from the University of Hawaii, he is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Airea Matthews

Poet and professor

Friday, March 28

Airea Matthews is an award-winning poet and professor whose debut collection, “Simulacra,” won the 2016 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. Her second book, “Bread and Circus,” a memoir-in-verse exploring class and race, earned the 2024 Los Angeles Times’ Book Prize in Poetry. Matthews’s work, known for its experimental forms and poignant commentary on desire, inheritance and social inequities, has been featured in Harper’s Bazaar, POETRY, The New York Times and Best American Poetry. A recipient of a 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship, she also earned accolades such as the Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship and a Pew Fellowship. Matthews co-chairs the creative writing department at Bryn Mawr College, where she received the Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award.