Thursday, September 14
6:30-10 PM
Julius Meinl
3601 N Southport Ave
Chicago, IL 60614
The Poetry Center of Chicago will host a reading featuring Lauren Hunter and Melissa Castro followed by jazz music by The Atticus Lazenby Group.
Lauren Hunter is a poet, editor and educator living in Durham, North Carolina. She received her MFA in poetry from The New School and is the managing editor for the experimental translation press Telephone. Lauren is the co-founder/curator of Electric Pumas, an occasional reading series/web presence interested in promoting multimedia art by women. Her chapbook, My Own Fires, was released by Brothel Books in 2011. HUMAN ACHIEVEMENTS is her first book.
Melissa Castro Almandina is a Xicana poet and mystic from the Southwest Side of Chicago. She began writing as a way to heal from trauma and uses her work to speak out against Rape Culture & Police Brutality. She is also a member of Brown and Proud Press, a zine collective that serves as a platform for healing in PoC communities. With her vintage Remington, she attends local and national zine festivals and offers on demand poetry with wax seals. She holds writing circles on the Southwest Side of Chicago and debuted her hand bound zine of poetry entitled, Rose Quartz and Serpentine. She was a featured writer at Pilsen Fest and has been published in The Garland Court Review, Home Zine, and Cuentos de Gringolandia. When she’s not writing poetry on Instagram or fawning over vintage, she looks for wormholes and accepts commissions.
The Atticus Lazenby Group formed in Chicago in 2014 as a performance vehicle for bassist/composer Atticus Lazenby’s compositions, through which it has since been exploring the points of intersection where jazz, funk, rock, hip-hop, and world music meet. The sound of the ALGroup layers horn-borne melodies and improvisational volleys over interlocking guitar and keyboard textures and a grooving foundation of bass, drums, and percussion. The ALGroup has performed around Chicago and shared the stage with local and nationally touring acts, including Dynamo and Fat Night. In July 2016, they released their self-titled debut album on Bandcamp and Spotify. They are currently working on material for a forthcoming second album.
