Archive by Author

Quesada, Ruben 2017

Thursday, June 14, 2017
GROOVE-A-THON with Tara Betts, Kristy Bowen, RJ Eldridge, and Simone Muench
Innertown Pub

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Papá dances
to the electric beat of the marimba,
his cheek bristly against Mamá’s
neck; his thick fingers sift
through her wispy hair. I am nowhere
to be found

              – Ruben Quesada, “Last Photograph of My Parents”

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Read this interview with Ruben Quesada from Jam Tarts:

Resisting Taste, with Ruben Quesada – Jam Tarts Magazine

Frederick Speers: Thanks for taking time to talk with me, Ruben, and for sharing your thoughts with the readers of Jam Tarts. So much of your poetry seems to be about love and loss. Would you say you’re a love poet? And if so, what kind(s) of love do you write about?

it is a gray so slick you can see your smile reflected in winter’s
glen; you’ve become the sky, your face filling the heavens. All that is left is the faint smell of
lavender lingering like a bruise. I refuse to lose you. 

Ruben Quesada, “On Witness”

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Woody, Daniel 2017

Thursday, June 29, 2017
Poetry in the Parks with Ed Roberson
Garfield Park Conservatory

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Some people declined, having formed convincing theories,
but the best among us ate quietly our share
and prayed to be forgiven of the hunger. 

              – Daniel Woody, “Chase/Noise/Bite”

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this of course
allows the mountain to sound the sunrise
and uncovers what tangled each of them in the first place

Daniel Woody, “Seek the Whistle”

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Roberson, Ed 2017

Thursday, June 29, 2017
Poetry in the Parks with Daniel Woody
Garfield Park Conservatory

bw+elbow

we drown together
in our living
to drink
from this
bone

– Ed Roberson, “Handed the Rain”

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Read this interview with Ed Roberson from the Weekender:

http://www.dailycal.org/2014/10/24/interview-ed-roberson/

White dashes of contrails’
seemingly unmoving streak towards sunrise
disquiet the pale otherwise
unpunctuated blue of dawn breaks it off                Here is that silence

Ed Roberson, “Here”

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Wilson, Keith S. 2017

Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Poetry in the Parks with Kathy Fagan
Humboldt Park

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the constellations are full
of dead women, he says. he says
my dress is the coat of a great lion.
i turn like the blood inside
a rose.

              – Keith S. Wilson, “Impression of a Rib”

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Watch Keith S. Wilson read for the Chicago Poetry Center, with Kathy Fagan:

Keith S. Wilson starts reading at 2:06

he asks my girlfriend not if she is white
since even in this light
what we are is obvious
but instead the sheriff offers some western
philosophy: ma’am    he asks
are you here of your own free will

– Keith S. Wilson, “Fieldnotes”

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Fagan, Kathy 2017

Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Poetry in the Parks with Keith S. Wilson
Humboldt Park

 

 

This is where I sat
in the avalanche.
In winter,
where I was born,
you pulled a cord of silk in your beautiful hand.

              – Kathy Fagan, “Snow Globe”

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Read this interview with Kathy Fagan:

“All the Leading and Leaping”: An Interview With Kathy Fagan – The Ploughshares Blog

Kathy Fagan’s poems explore the mysteries in the matter-of-fact; they bring a sharp eye and tender heart to the exact and strange particulars of life. Her fifth book of poems, Sycamore, was published earlier this year. We caught up over email to talk about this beautiful new book.

We girls saved our cigarette ashes to fade our Levis with.
We crisped our hair with curling wands.
We always smelled like smoke, playing
as we did with fire 

– Kathy Fagan, “”Where I Am Going”/ “I Dare to Live””

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Watch Kathy Fagan read for the Chicago Poetry Center, with Keith S. Wilson:

Kathy Fagan starts reading at 20:33.

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Cross, Vida 2017

Thursday, Aug 31, 2017
Poetry in the Parks with Aaron Coleman

 

 

Read this interview with Vida Cross from Awst Press:

Interview with Vida Cross – Awst Press

After last week’s debut of poet Vida Cross’s book, BRONZEVILLE AT NIGHT: 1949, Liz Blood chatted with Cross about the influences on her work including painter Archibald J. Motley, writer Langston Hughes, and living in Chicago. They discussed bringing writing, music, and painting together, d

Watch Vida Cross read here:

https://vimeo.com/152918611

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Coleman, Aaron 2017

Thursday, Aug 31, 2017
Poetry in the Parks with Vida Cross

 

 

 I am made of what I am afraid to remember. Come tell me more
about what I was—about the brothers, mind-ancient now, fleeing
Mississippi with spilled moon ready in their eyes. 

              – Aaron Coleman, “Very Many Hands”

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Read this interview with Aaron Coleman from Cave Canem:

DOGBYTES interview: Aaron Coleman

A Cave Canem Fellow and Fulbright Scholar from Metro-Detroit, Aaron Coleman is the winner of the Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Contest, The Cincinnati Review Schiff Award, and the American Literary Translator Association’s Jansen Memorial Fellowship. His chapbook, St. Trigger, won the 2015 Button Poetry Prize, and his work can be found in Apogee, Boston Review, Fence, New York Times Magazine, and elsewhere.

Faith, let me be rootless, fluent
as pain and change-slick water. I am you and falling through
darkness in my mind, soft spill of dying fireflies, impatient
in this body, this brink, scheme, see: in here I can’t look back. 

– Aaron Coleman, “To Whom— To What— Do I Belong”

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Watch Aaron Coleman read here:

Aaron Coleman – On Acquiescence

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Hunter, Lauren 2017

Thursday, Sept 14, 2017
with Melissa Castro
Julius Meinl

 

 

this happens when i am between asleep
and you                    when my hair is wet
call me hurricane i answer to anything 

              – Lauren Hunter, “i am warm and powerful”

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Read this interview with Lauren Hunter from Entropy:

https://entropymag.org/lauren-hunter-in-conversation-with-vi-khi-nao

why i like to see my breath like smoke. why i like to
be the last body in a room. i’m gonna touch everything, someday. 

– Lauren Hunter, from “the gospel according to tough love”

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Watch Lauren Hunter read here:

Lauren Hunter HUMAN ACHIEVEMENTS NC LAUNCH – selina kyle’s apartment

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Tardi, Mark 2017

Wednesday, Oct 4, 2017
with Nina Corwin
57th Street Books

bw+elbow

some spindle of the sun
empirically facted
deafening skin
open and afterwards

              – Mark Tardi, “series 2”

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Read this interview with Mark Tardi:

12 or 20 (second series) questions with Mark Tardi

Mark Tardi is from Chicago. He is the author of the books Euclid Shudders and the newly released Airport music . He also has an essay in …

As ridiculous as writing a postcard to her cat
these were bodies like mismatched socks
a kind of furniture
no more holdable than the wind 

– Mark Tardi, from “Attribution Error”

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