The Mexican War Streets neighborhood becomes a veritable United Nations of literature and music Saturday -- with a healthy dose of city-based artists in the mix.

The occasion is the second annual Jazz Poetry Concert presented by the City of Asylum/Pittsburgh chapter at 7:30 p.m.

The organization, one of five nationwide, provides shelter for exiled writers in renovated houses near the Mattress Factory on Sampsonia Way. The alley will be the site of the concert as well.

R. Henry Reese, founder of the local chapter, has expanded the concert's worldwide reach this year in partnership with the University of Iowa's International Writing Program.

Iowa is sending three authors -- Kei Miller of Jamaica, G. Ayurzana of Mongolia and Kavery Nambisan of India -- for Saturday's program. They also will offer readings at Point Park and Chatham universities tomorrow.

Joining the trio Saturday will be asylum participants Horacio Castellanos Moya, an El Salvadoran novelist, and Huang Xian, a Chinese poet. War Streets resident Rita Malikonyte Mockus, a Lithuanian poet, rounds out the group.

The World Saxophone Quartet and Pittsburgh drummer Roger Humphries will provide the music.

"I will be bringing my Lithuanian sensibilities to the English language," said Mockus with a chuckle. "I now write in English, and the pieces I have written for this concert are inspired by the jazz music we are going to hear."

Mockus said she trained as a classical pianist in her hometown of Kaunas. Her father, Juozas Malikonis, is an opera singer, although she has since moved away from classical music.

"I studied under the Russian system, but it was a bit too formal for me," she said. "There was no attempt to branch out, to play jazz harmonies. I wanted to be experimental."

Mockus called the poems she wrote for the concert "an art form rather than a literary form. They are conceptual sounds, somewhat like music."

One of her earlier works, lyrics for an orchestral composition, was performed by the National Philharmonic of Lithuania, and she plans to publish her first poetry collection next year.

Mockus, whose husband is a physician for UPMC, is a staff member of the educational office of the Frick Art & Historical Center.

Leading the Iowa contingent will be Hugh Ferrer, associate director of the International Writing Program.

The program annually invites about 40 writers from around the world to "show them America and give them writing time," Ferrer said. He called the participants "young and emerging writers who are just entering their mid-career. They're on the rise."

The visitors spend three months in the program, giving readings, researching writing topics, exchanging ideas and translating each other's work.

The U.S. State Department is the largest sponsor of the program, Ferrer said, "but many are sponsored by cultural organizations in their countries as well."

Ferrer offered brief sketches of the authors coming here:

G. Ayurzana, 36, is "a leading poet and educator from Mongolia. He doesn't call himself a poet because there's no recognizable rhyme or rhythm in his language. He also provides a very good window into a very hard to see literature."

Kei Miller, 28, "seems like a young master. He contributes to poetry in a variety of forms" and he presents "different forms of sharing ideas as poet, editor and fiction writer. Miller is established in the Anglo world as a writer whose voice is loud and clear and affecting."

Kavery Nambisan, 58, has worked as a doctor treating patients in rural areas of India. She is also the author of adult and children's novels and a memoir of "what it is like to become a professional woman doctor in modern India. ... She is a beautiful and clear writer."