Join the Poetry Center throughout this late summer and early fall for readings including Tara Betts, avery r. young, Meg Day, and more!
We’ve got a stellar fall lineup which we’ll be previewing here. Our series kicks off with our annual Poetry on a Boat reading. Check back here or sign up for our mailing list for updates!
Tara Betts is the author of two full-length poetry collections Break the Habit, which was published in October 2016 with Trio House Press, and her debut collection Arc & Hue on the Willow Books imprint of Aquarius Press. In 2010, Essence Magazine named her as one of their “40 Favorite Poets”
avery r. young is a 3Arts Award winning teaching artist, composer and producer with work that spans the genres of music, performance, visual arts and literature. Examining and celebrating Black American history and culture, his work also focuses in the areas of social justice, equity, queer identity, misogyny, and body consciousness. As a writer, this Cave Canem alum has work featured in The Breakbeat Poets, Coon Bidness, to be left with the body, and Make Magazine. He has also written curriculum and essays on arts education that appear in the Teaching Artist Journal and A.I.M. Print.
September: Six Points Reading
Featuring: Rosie Accola and Jessica Mascarenhas
Location: Space Oddities in Humboldt Park
September 20th at 7:00pm
Raych Jackson is a writer, educator and performer. While teaching third and fourth grade in Chicago Public Schools, Jackson competed on numerous national poetry teams and individual competitions. Her poems have gained over 2 million views on YouTube. She is the 2017 NUPIC Champion and a 2017 Pink Door fellow. Jackson recently voiced ‘DJ Raych’ in the Jackbox game, Mad Verse City. Her latest play, “Emotions & Bots”, premiered at the Woerdz Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland. Jackson wrote a room dedicated to her city for 29Rooms’ first installment in Chicago, through Refinery 29. She co-created and co-hosts Big Kid Slam, a monthly poetry show in Chicago. Jackson’s work has been published by many— including Poetry Magazine, The Rumpus, The Shallow Ends, and Washington Square Review. Her debut collection EVEN THE SAINTS AUDITION is forthcoming through Button Poetry. She currently lives in Chicago.
Berry Grass is originally from rural Missouri, got their MFA in Tuscaloosa, and now lives & teaches writing in Philadelphia. They are the author of Hall of Waters (forthcoming in 2019 from The Operating System). Their essays and poems appear in DIAGRAM, The Normal School, Barrelhouse, BOAAT, Phoebe, Bedfellows, The Wanderer, and Sonora Review, among other publications. They are a 2019 nominee for the Krause Essay Prize. Their chapbook, Collector’s Item, was published in 2014 by Corgi Snorkel Press. They host Tragic: the Gathering — an occasional transgender literature reading series in Philadelphia. When they aren’t reading submissions as Nonfiction Editor of Sundog Lit, they’re embodying what happens when a Virgo watches too much professional wrestling.
November: Six Points Reading
Featuring: Meg Day and Jonathan Mendoza
Location: Semicolon Bookstore
Date: November 15th at 7pm
Meg Day is the author of Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street, 2014), winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and The Publishing Triangle’s 2015 Audre Lorde Award, and a finalist for the 2016 Kate Tufts Discovery Award from Claremont Graduate University, a 2015 Lambda Literary Award in Poetry, and Jacar Press’ Julie Suk Award. Day is the author of two chapbooks: When All You Have Is a Hammer (winner of the 2012 Gertrude Press Chapbook Contest), and We Can’t Read This (winner of the 2013 Gazing Grain Chapbook Contest). Day’s poems appear or are forthcoming in Beloit Poetry Journal, cream city review, and Vinyl.
Jonathan Mendoza is an award-winning Mexican-American and Jewish spoken word poet, community organizer, activist, and educator. He writes and performs on topics pertaining to social justice, mental health, multiracial and Jewish POC identity, Latinidad, U.S.–Latin American relations, and local and global politics. He is a National Poetry Slam champion with the House Slam of Boston, Massachusetts, a three-time award winner at the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational, and the 2018 winner of the Sonia Sanchez-Langston Hughes Poetry Contest. His work has been featured in Huffington Post, The Boston Globe, and Button Poetry.
