Welcome to Podium! Issue 10. Podium publishes exclusive work by students who have participated in an Unterberg Poetry Center workshop or class— from first-time to seasoned. At the end of each semester, instructors select either a novel excerpt, short story, poem or other work by one student from each class to showcase his/her work in Podium.

Explore the full issue here. Below is a poem by Helen Barnard, who also has a poem in the new issue of The New Republic.

In honor of Polish poet Wisława Szymborska, who died on Wednesday, 92nd Street Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center offers this tribute—a discussion of her work by Clare Cavanagh, her award-winning translator, on March 20, 2011 at 92Y. This clip also features a reading of the poem “Identification” in both English and Polish.

“I remember being at a conference in Poland with American and Polish poets,” Cavanagh recalled, “and somebody talked about Szymborska—one of the very well-known American poets (fortunately I don’t remember his name anymore)—as being a straight-speaker, and I just felt like slapping him. She’s the opposite of a straight-speaker. She’s a master of voice, and she listens to so many kinds of voices and creates the illusion of straight-speech while challenging what straight-speech even is.”

Read more about Doug Elkins Choreography, etc.: Mo(or)town Redux.

This year’s 18th Harkness Dance Festival season, entitled STRIPPED/DRESSED, is being curated by choreographer Doug Varone, a former dancer with Lar Lubovitch, who opens the festival on February 17. Varone invited each artist to present a Stripped/Dressed evening. In the first half – “Stripped” – the artists show the skeleton and seeds of the full work, stripped of theatrical devices, as one might see it in a studio rehearsal. Then they present the work “Dressed” with costumes and lights in a more theatrical setting.

In addition to Doug Elkins Choreography, etc.: Mo(or)town Redux and Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, there will be performances by Peggy Baker Dance Project, Monica Bill Barnes & Company and Susan Marshall & Company.

Read more and purchase tickets on 92Y.org/HarknessFestival.

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Well + Good spoke with Heidi Kothe-Levie, a licensed acupuncturist certified in Oriental medicine and former senior tea specialist for Ito-En. “A lot of research has shown benefits for cancer prevention, cardiovascular health, and cognitive health,” Kother Levie told Well + Good. “But if you’re drinking tea for overall disease risk reduction, it all comes down to how frequently you’re drinking it, how you’re brewing it, and what kind it is.” She gave four tips for getting the most health benefits from your tea: 

Musicians are probably smarter than the rest of us. That’s what a recent study suggests.

This should be welcome news for anyone with budding musicians in their home, or anyone who might be considering learning how to play an instrument. And we have more good news: The 92nd Street Y School of Music open house is this Sunday, February 5. Explore the School of Music, meet members of our brilliant faculty and find out more about their instruments and pedagogical methods.

The 92Y School of Music offers programs for musicians and music enthusiasts of all ages and backgrounds through performance, ensembles, private study, courses, lectures and workshops.

RSVP for our Open House classes, here.

Our faculty members are professionally trained, highly experienced and dedicated to nurturing students at every level.

While you’re here, you could even try to fit in Shababa™ the Concert!

Don’t forget you let your friends know too; share this with your friends on Twitter and Facebook. 

See more of Coco – and Karina Zilberman – at Shababa™ the Concert on February 5 (and still get home in time for the Super Bowl). And you can pick up a copy of the brand new Shababaland CD (which includes the full version of “Coco’s Song”). Coco is a regular at Shababa™, a warm, inclusive and growing Jewish community that gives families lots of different ways to explore and celebrate Jewish life and culture. Just think how Kristin Bell would react if she ever attended!

This Sunday, bring your family to meet ours, at Shababa™ the Concert. See you there!

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Do you have questions about Judaism, faith and family, life, or any other concerns? 

Are you ready to Ask The Rabbi? Visit our Facebook page today and leave your questions for Rabbi Kalb; he’ll answer them live on our Facebook wall. Head over there and Ask The Rabbi!

Don’t forget to share this with your friends on on Twitter and Facebook. 

Travel writer Pico Iyer first read at 92nd Street Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center in 2005. Today’s featured recording is an excerpt from that appearance. In this video he describes a recent journey to India and the mystifying experience of attempting to decipher the strange English street-signs he encountered all around him.

“Last Wednesday found me sitting in the shadow of the Himalayas, surrounded by snowcaps and red-robed monks. Last Thursday I was in Singapore. Last Friday I was in Los Angeles. Now I don’t have a clue where I am,” he said from stage that night, having been introduced, by Caryl Phillips, as “the most global of souls—sensitive and curious about everything. A shining example of how one might live in this brave, new, hybrid world as both a writer and a thinker.”

Iyer’s new book, The Man Within My Head, focuses on his obsession with Graham Greene while also featuring passages of memoir about his family and dispatches from faraway places. He’ll be at 92Y on February 9th for a reading from this book.

What gives the book its distinction is “the range of [Iyer’s] sympathies—for a diversity of cultures, for varieties of religious belief, for opposed political positions—and his luminous intelligence,” wrote The Wall Street Journal. Iyer’s reading partner on February 9th will be Rebecca Solnit, whose own work is well known for its range of sympathies and luminous intelligence. Her new book, From the Faraway Nearby, comes out in 2013, and we hope she’ll read some passages from it.

Pico Iyer and Rebecca Solnit are here on February 9.

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Coming up at 92Y Poetry: Jean Strouse and Colm Toibin on Alice James on February 26.

In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments which the Unterberg Poetry Center has presented across the decades, this blog has begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings. For access to other recordings, please click here.

Unterberg Poetry Center webcasts and access to our archive are made possible in part by the generous support of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.