Filipina American poet Irene Suico Soriano, program coordinator in UCLA's Department of English, is a featured participant this summer in Voices of LA: The Krupnick Festival of the Arts. Suico Soriano is reading her original poetry, which has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Philippines Free Press, “Short Fuse: The Global Anthology of New Fusion Poetry” (2002, Rattapallax Press) and other publications.
Voices of LA is a citywide collaborative presenting free, cross-cultural performances by award-winning L.A. artists representing a broad range of ethnicities and cultures to showcase the diversity that sets Los Angeles apart as a dynamic metropolis.
Suico Soriano is the recipient of two Graduate Poetry Awards from Loyola Marymount University, where she earned a B.A. in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry and a minor in playwriting. She received the 1990 American College Theater Achievement Award for her play, “Isang Anak (One Child),” in UC Santa Barbara's New Play Festival. In 2000, she received the PEN Center USA West Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellowship to complete her poetry manuscript, "A Second Sky." Suico Soriano founded and coordinated the reading series, “Wrestling Tigers: Asian Pacific American Writers Speak,” at the Japanese American National Museum and was literary curator for the LA Festival of Philippine Arts & Culture from 1994-2000. Learn more about her here.
Catch Suico Soriano's next reading on Sunday, Aug. 17, 4 p.m. at the Breed Street Shul in Boyle Heights. On Sunday, Sept. 14, 11 a.m. - 5:30 p.m., she will read at a culminating festival showcasing all of the artists and featuring food, entertainment and more at the historic 1929 Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Koreatown. Voices of LA events are free and open to the public, but an RSVP is recommended. Find more information and RSVP at Voices of LA.
