This event will include a screening of Cindy Tran’s film, Sonnet Crown for NYC. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by poetry editor Nkosi Nkululeko with Tran, the film’s director Xiao Han, and business owners Kit Keys, Yant Studio, Queens; Hind Almashhadani, Almashhadani Services, Staten Island; Ramona Ferreyra, Ojala Threads, the Bronx; and Hank Kwon, Bulletproof Comics, Brooklyn.

Cindy Tran’s film Sonnet Crown for NYC celebrates small business owners of establishments—such as a barbershop, a pharmacy, and an immigration service—throughout the five boroughs. After interviewing these New Yorkers, Tran wrote sonnets that they recited to the camera, capturing their feelings and thoughts about the pandemic that has taken a disproportionate toll on many of their lives and livelihoods. Tran drew inspiration for this film from artistic Yelp reviews she began writing in the form of poems in Minneapolis in 2012, a practice she continued when she moved to New York City in 2015. When one of her poem-reviews responding to a racist review of a Vietnamese restaurant she frequented was chosen as a Review of the Day, she felt inspired to shift her focus from consumer judgments to sincere reflections about the ways our values and beliefs shape our daily lives. The poems that compose the film’s sonnet redoublé, or series of 15 interlaced sonnets, challenge readers to see the people who are often overlooked in the city’s communities—those who feel they have no choice but to keep working in the pandemic to sustain themselves and those that they care for, despite the threat to their own health.

Tickets:
https://theshed.org/program/195-open-call-cindy-tran

This event takes place in The McCourt.

The screening of Sonnet Crown for NYC takes place Saturday, June 5 at 8 pm.