"The Lonesomeness of Pioneering," a poetry reading by multidisciplinary artist and educator Susan Eisenberg, will be presented at 1 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6, 2009, at at the Poetry Center in the Mildred Sawyer Library.

Eisenberg re-imagines the everyday, playing with scale and juxtaposition to investigate issues of power and social policy.

She is the author of Blind Spot, a poetry collection, and We’ll Call You If We Need You: Experiences of Women Working Construction, a New York Times Notable Book.

As an artist, activist, author, and lecturer, Eisenberg helped shape the cultural expression and analytical thinking of the tradeswoman's movement nationally and internationally.

She has developed two touring exhibits: the photographs and poems of Perpetual Care and the mixed media installation On Equal Terms, which is at the University's Adams Gallery through March 17, 2009.

Eisenberg has brought her poetry and the stories and perspectives of tradeswomen to a wide range of venues, including the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington D.C. and the International Labour Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

As a visiting artist/scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, Eisenberg focuses on projects in medical humanities and employment equity.

She is a recipient of the Samuel Gompers Union Leadership Award from City University of New York, served on the Planning Committee of the First National IBEW Women's Conference, and consulted with the AFL-CIO's Center to Protect Workers' Rights on equity policies.

The reading is sponsored by the Women's and Gender Studies Program.

Refreshments will be served.