Department of English

• Wednesday, February 24, 2016 - 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Kelly Writers House, Arts Cafe

City Planning Poetics is a semesterly series that invites one or more poets and one or more planners, designers, planning historians or others working in the field of city planning to discuss a particular topic central to their work, to ask each other questions, and to read from their current projects.

Jena Osman's books of poems include Corporate Relations (Burning Deck, 2014), Public Figures (Wesleyan University Press, 2012), The Network (Fence Books 2010, selected for the National Poetry Series in 2009), An Essay in Asterisks (Roof Books, 2004) and The Character (Beacon Press, winner of the 1998 Barnard New Women Poets Prize). She is a Professor of English at Temple University, where she teaches in the MFA Creative Writing Program. She founded and edited the literary magazine Chain with Juliana Spahr for twelve years, which is currently archived in the ReIssues section of the online journal Jacket2; Osman and Spahr now edit the occasional book series ChainLinks together.

Amy Hillier has been at Penn since 1995 when she came to complete her MSW and PhD in social welfare. Her dissertation on historical mortgage redlining made extensive use of GIS mapping and eventually led to a faculty position at the School of Design. She currently teaches GIS courses in city planning, urban studies, and social work. Her research has focused on spatial health disparities including access to healthful foods and exposure to outdoor advertising. Currently she is engaged in a collaborative effort to extend academic and field training opportunities for graduate social work, education, and nursing students relating to social, educational, and health services for LGBTQ youth, particularly trans youth of color. She lives in West Philadelphia with her husband and two young children.