In celebration of the International Day of Peace and Austin’s Poems for Peace Initiative, Usha Akella will read from her new book ‘The Rosary of Latitudes.’ In THE ROSARY OF LATITUDES, poet, author and playwright Usha Akella investigates her Indian identity with place and travel through poems, prose and photographs. While the beads on her rosary come from different latitudes in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia, she has found a way to combine them in a harmonious collection that flows like water and sings in many voices. As she travels from country to country, Akella explores a wide range of cultural and spiritual matters, including the paradoxical nature of identity and the many-layered process one must face to reconcile the splintered parts of one’s self. Just as Pablo Neruda and Walt Whitman explored travel and place, THE ROSARY OF LATITUDES shows readers how travel has shaped and informed Akella’s literary outlook on life through language, rhythm and landscape. This reading is part of the Peace Day Austin activities. (Presented by the Austin Community College Arts and Humanities Division and Co-sponsored by the Austin Community College Peace and Conflict Studies Center).