Archive by Author

Yarberry, S. 2024

Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Blue Hour Reading Series with S. Yarberry and Dan “Sully” Sullivan
Haymarket House

bw+elbow

A world of fragment is my private life.
A world, though, is just the world to the public.
If my life is a field then it’s a dirt field.
Regular, and bearing all dragged through it.
Marked, is what I mean. The dirt harrowing.

– S. Yarberry, “Stage Directions”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch S. Yarberry’s 2024 reading with Dan “Sully” Sullivan at the Chicago Poetry Center:

S. Yarberry begins at 21:41 minutes.

In one moment the man curls himself into a ball,
a pink ball, like fire like something burning,
as the woman turns from him, all night,
into an eternal night, blazing, these bad lovers do this—an
ambiguous call comes up from the distance—no one
listens, anymore.

– S. Yarberry, “An Apocalyptic Wanting, Wanting”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Listen to this interview with S. Yarberry:

https://www.commonpodcast.com/home/2022/12/20/episode-106-s-yarberry-with-v-conaty

Visit S. Yarberry’s website⇒

Dzieglewicz, Teresa 2023; 2024

Monday May 22, 2023
Poetry @ the Green with Teresa Dzieglewicz
320 S. Canal
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Blue Hour Reading Series with Teresa Dzieglewicz and C. Russell Price
Haymarket House

bw+elbow

In the leafless trees whose names I don’t know, woodpeckers are preying
boisterously. I can’t find them. I’m not from a people who have done this,

at least recently, but I’m trying to get to know the plants— even
downloaded an app. I jam a stem of toothy florets into frame,

shoot. Calico aster, the screen tells me. Calico aster, I tell my toddler.
He digs in the dying stems, tries to pull out the roots. He’s a child

– Teresa Dzieglewicz, “Earth, I don’t know how to love you”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch Teresa Dzieglewicz’s 2024 reading with C. Russell Price at the Chicago Poetry Center:

Teresa Dzieglewicz begins at 19:06 minutes.

Lady, I’m sorry you wasted your money
on that grocery store rose, petals creased
white from cheap scrunchy cellophane, sinewy
green scabs where there used to be thorns.
Sorry you wasted your time ripping your french tips
into the flower’s dark crimson hips, petal-flesh

– Teresa Dzieglewicz, “To the abstinence-only educator at my high school:”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Listen to Teresa Dzieglewicz read her poetry and discuss her time at Standing Rock:

Visit Teresa Dzieglewicz’s website⇒

Bayani, Jason 2023

Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Blue Hour Reading Series with Jason Bayani and Jacob Saenz
Haymarket House

bw+elbow

I’m waiting for the words    to catch up to my heart     which is
elliptical at the moment      there’s an apology

even I am expecting to bore out of my throat

                   but what for      what for

I am continuing to write in a font      that displeasures me        everything shifts so rapidly

my body       the environment       my body     the environment

– Jason Bayani, “Someday, Again”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch Jason Bayani’s 2023 reading with Jacob Saenz at the Chicago Poetry Center:

Jason Bayani begins at 41:07 minutes.

It was said that in the beginning there was only the sea and the sky; not a spot of land and only the flying animals living between. And the waters were quiet. And the skies were always still. And, yet, everything moves around them, and there must be something that moves them, too. When we become aware of our wants, isn’t it then that we understand we are helpless to time? As all things must be.

– Jason Bayani, “Tesseract (excerpts)”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch Jason Bayani’s performance, “A Metric Expansion of Space”

Visit Jason Bayani’s website⇒

Saenz, Jacob 2023

Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Blue Hour Reading Series with Jacob Saenz and Jason Bayani
Haymarket House

bw+elbow

As a boy I bicycled the block
w/a brown mop top falling
into a tail bleached blond,

gold-like under golden light,
like colors of Noble Knights
’banging on corners, unconcerned

w/the colors I bore—a shorty
too small to war with, too brown
to be down for the block.

– Jacob Saenz, “Evolution of My Block”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch Jacob Saenz’s 2023 reading with Jason Bayani at the Chicago Poetry Center:

Jacob Saenz begins at 19:13 minutes.

He was just some coked-out,
crazed King w/crooked teeth
& a teardrop forever falling,
fading from his left eye, peddling
crack to passengers or crackheads
passing as passengers on a train
chugging from Chicago to Cicero,
from the Loop through K-Town:
Kedzie, Kostner, Kildare.

– Jacob Saenz, “Blue Line Incident”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Listen to this interview with Jacob Saenz:

More info on Jacob Saenz⇒

Henry, Marcy Rae 2023

Wednesday, October 18, 2023
Blue Hour Reading Series with Marcy Rae Henry and Kenyatta Rogers
Haymarket House

bw+elbow

Too much truthtelling in poetry. It ain’t lyrical.
Stick with your own kind. Smoldering
and unwashed and looking for the nearest spigot.

That’s more like life.
But the thing is, there was a drama teacher.
Asymmetrical haircut. Glasses on a long chain of beads.
And a love scene: You have to kiss whoever I pair you with.

– Marcy Rae Henry, “It was the 80s and gay girls at our high school got the hell beat out of them”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch Marcy Rae Henry’s 2023 reading with Kenyatta Rogers at the Chicago Poetry Center:

Marcy Rae Henry begins at 37:50 minutes.

i tell you there are 5 black doors in front of me
and i want to paint one red.

amnesia is typically violent.
non-penetrating business is common
and reasonably understood.

the brain suffers playback.
non-penetrating violent failure.

– Marcy Rae Henry, “polygraph of the amnesiac”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Read this interview with Marcy Rae Henry:

Riding the Dragon: Between Inhale and Exhale, Time Stretching Like Shadows Across Purple Mountains – Mud Season Review

An Interview with Marcy Rae Henry by Jonah Meyer, Mud Season Review Poetry Editor Please tell us about your writing process. Do you have a specific or favored routine? A preferred time, setting, or place for your creation of poems? Who, what, when, or where tends to inspire you?

Visit Marcy Rae Henry’s website⇒

Rogers, Kenyatta 2014; 2023

Wednesday, October 15, 2014
with Hannah Gamble
Chicago Cultural Center
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
Blue Hour Reading Series with Kenyatta Rogers and Marcy Rae Henry
Haymarket House

bw+elbow

I had a dream
that I read a poem
to a woman
and cried
at how beautiful
it was

and she cried
at how beautiful
that was
and I thought
how even my
thoughts are
a problem.

– Kenyatta Rogers, “The Most Beautifullest Thing”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch Kenyatta Rogers’ 2023 reading with Marcy Rae Henry at the Chicago Poetry Center:

Kenyatta Rogers begins at 19:28 minutes.

I never missed that $60,
I could spend it easily.
I can take the stairs,
I have fingers and can use buttons.
Before lightning there should be thunder
and if there’s not, it’s still ok.

– Kenyatta Rogers, “Bruce Banner #3”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Listen to Kenyatta Rogers, with Hannah Gamble, read for the Poetry Center of Chicago’s Six Points Reading Series:

Listen to Kenyatta Rogers read “Carpet Bomb”:

More info on Kenyatta Rogers⇒

LeBlanc, Courtney 2023

Wednesday, September 20, 2023
Blue Hour Reading Series with Courtney LeBlanc and Cynthia Manick
Haymarket House

bw+elbow

It’s easy to get lost here—with nothing
but wide open a person can wander
for weeks without finding shelter.
Men have plowed and planted, hoed
and harvested, been nurtured
and broken by this land—it’s not always
my fault but if a farmer doesn’t learn
grief early he’ll never make it.

– Courtney LeBlanc, “The Plains Speak Grief”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch Courtney LeBlanc’s 2023 reading with Cynthia Manick at the Chicago Poetry Center:

Courtney LeBlanc begins at 19:11 minutes.

Because that would at least give me something
to write about. But I think of all the reasons I shouldn’t:
I’d have to wear something other than yoga pants,
have to go somewhere other than the grocery store
or the park because despite romantic comedies, I’m not
meeting anyone there.

– Courtney LeBlanc, “While Trying To Write A Poem I Realize I Have Nothing To Write About SO I Contemplate Having An Affair”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Listen to Courtney LeBlanc read her poem, “Honey –for Kristen”:

View this poem⇒

Check out Courtney LeBlanc’s blog:

Word Perv

Word Perv (noun): One who takes delight and is skilled at constructing, writing or saying naughty phrases or dialogue.

Visit Courtney LeBlanc’s website⇒

Manick, Cynthia 2023

Wednesday, September 20, 2023
Blue Hour Reading Series with Cynthia Manick and Courtney LeBlanc
Haymarket House

bw+elbow

I try to quantify what we inherit—
dancers legs that know how to roam
but be church pious by morning,
the ability to fold shirts into a perfect square
or the street walk that says I’m a willing
dove but need no man or pierced jewelry.

– Cynthia Manick, “Is This Your Sky or Mine?”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch Cynthia Manick’s 2023 reading with Courtney LeBlanc at the Chicago Poetry Center:

Cynthia Manick begins at 37:43 minutes.

Yesterday my legs were propped
in stirrups as the gyno said you
should go on The Biggest Loser.
I heard cities at the skull base
stuttering over each other,
vine and vowels of your rolls
and the garden under your chin.
The implied real estate of—
don’t you want to be beautiful?
Unmade and remade?

– Cynthia Manick, “Dear Future Body (Keep Your Skin Thickk)”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch this interview clip with Cynthia Manick:

Listen to this playlist inspired by Cynthia Manick’s recent collection, “No Sweet Without Brine”:

Visit Cynthia Manick’s website⇒

Sutter, Cory 2023

Monday, September 18, 2023
Poetry @ the Green with Cory Sutter
320 S. Canal

bw+elbow

One Gay Two Gay / Pride 2022 from Cory Sutter on Vimeo.

Check out Cory Sutter’s podcast:

Pathetic and Poetic

‘Pathetic and Poetic’ is a weekly comedy poetry podcast that steps into the sometimes artistic, sometimes insane, but never boring minds of Natalie Schaffer and Cory Sutter. Each week they decide on a new theme and write original poetry while disc…

Visit Cory Sutter’s website⇒

Poetry Center of Chicago | Literacenter | 641 W. Lake Street, Suite 200 | Chicago, Illinois 60661