Felon: Reginald Dwayne Betts with Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Thu. Oct 17, 2019 at 6:30pm EDT
All Ages
All Ages
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Event Description

Prison doesn’t end when your sentence does. Betts’s new volume of poetry explores the lifelong force imprisonment exerts on a person, even when they come out from behind its walls.
Between traditional forms and erasure poetry created from redacted court documents, Reginald Dwayne Betts creates a travelogue of the many effects incarceration casts on one man’s life after he leaves prison. Through verse that touches on homelessness, underemployment, love, drug abuse, domestic violence, fatherhood, and grace, Felon brings into focus the profound failures of the criminal justice system and the inadequacy of the labels it generates.


Betts, who transformed himself from a sixteen-year old kid sentenced to nine-years in prison to a critically acclaimed writer and graduate of the Yale Law School, is joined by abolitionist and prison scholar, Ruth Wilson Gilmore.


FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED
For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form one hour before the program.


PRESS 
Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc.) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Sara Beth Joren at sarabethjoren@nypl.org.


For all other inquiries, please contact publicprograms@nypl.org.




ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing accessibility@nypl.org.

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Venue Details
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Wachenheim Trustees Room (2nd Floor) The New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 42nd Street & 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10018