As Dore Ashton says at the start of the event, this symposium is in memory of Muriel Rukeyser and her work for PEN on freedom of expression issues in Nicaragua and South Korea. In that vein, Roberto Vargas, an US-born poet and Sandinista, begins by telling how Rukeyser helped him bring the priest and poet Ernesto Cardenal to the United States for a reading in the 1970s. Vargas goes on to talk about the successful literacy campaign conducted in Nicaragua after the insurrection and the ousting of the Somoza government, and concludes by reading a few of his own poems written during the insurrection. Grace Paley then reads poems that have come out of the literacy campaign, poems by the Nicaraguan poets Cardenal and Gioconda Belli, three of Rukeyser's poems from the book "The Gates" about the imprisoned South Korean poet Kim Chiofha, and one poem of her own. She is followed by Jonathan Cohen, reading from Ernesto Cardenal's book "Zero Hour"; Allen Ginsberg, reading poems of his own about Latin America, the US media, and revolutions; and Grace Schulman, reading her co-translations of the work of the great Nicaraguan poet Pablo Antonio Cuadra.

2 compact cassettes (1/8-inch magnetic audio tape)

Includes Allen Ginsberg, Dore Ashton, Mario Vargas Llosa, Muriel Rukeyser. One original and one copy.