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Jackson-Opoku, Sandra 2017

Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Reading the Black Library: Celebrating Brooks with Quraysh Ali Lansana
Bing Reading Room

 

 

What you mean, you trying to catch a train? I don’t care a bit more than nothing about no train. You know what they say about trains. If you miss one now, there’ll soon come another. You don’t want to be riding on an empty stomach no how. 

              – Sandra Jackson-Opoku, “Dirty Rice”

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Read this interview with Sandra Jackson-Opoku from the Journal Standard:

Letters to the Editor: Friday, April 30, 2010

Don’t consolidate school for cognitively impaired … Invest in future with vote for Addison bond … Accept ‘Redskins’ name or move somewhere else.

You are just like your father. I would only say those words in tenderness. When he was born with that booty chin,
a cleft just like his father’s. When the baby fat began to melt from his bones and long, lean warrior limbs emerged. When I noticed that his laugh was developing a husky vibrato. 

              – Sandra Jackson-Opoku, “Muskmelon”

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Watch Sandra Jackson-Opoku speak here:

Sandra Jackson Opoku: The Tie Between Past, Present & Future

Sandra Jackson-Opoku is an award-winning poet, fiction writer, screenwriter, and journalist who writes frequently on culture and travel in the African diaspora. Related link: http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/jacksonopokuSandra.php

More info on Sandra Jackson-Opoku⇒

Lansana, Quraysh Ali 2017

Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Reading the Black Library: Celebrating Brooks with Sandra Jackson-Opoku
Bing Reading Room

 

 

aint got no mind ta leev dis place
go on moses   find yo promise lan
mines is here beside dis fire
wid folks we knows from when we’s born

              – Quraysh Ali Lansana, “faithless”

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Read this interview with Quraysh Ali Lansana from the Gawker:

http://review.gawker.com/the-breakbeat-poets-on-how-hip-hop-revolutionized-ameri-1720356934

yo baby   i aint too old jus yet
jus round thirty-one   i think   make us a home john    one
where we’s both free   free from de lash’s shadow free like de lord
mean   got dis suit fo ya john   aint nobody worn dese clothes befo
walk proud in dese clothese   dese is free mans cloths

              – Quraysh Ali Lansana, “long way home”

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Watch Quraysh Ali Lansana read here:

Quraysh Ali Lansana: The Walmart Republic

Quraysh Ali Lansana stops by the Academy of American Poets to discuss his latest book of poems, The Walmart Republic, cowritten by Christopher Stewart. *For highest quality playback, change your view settings using the gear icon to 720p HD.

More info on Quraysh Ali Lansana⇒

Crowley, Maggie 2017

Thursday, March 30, 2017
with Danielle Rosen and Carris Adams (performed as Patricia Rose)
Museum of Contemporary Photography

 

 

View some of Maggie Crowley’s work here:

http://www.maggiecrowley.info/analog-1/

Read this interview with Maggie Crowley from VoyageChicago:

http://voyagechicago.com/interview/meet-maggie-crowley-produce-model-gallery-pilsen/

Watch Maggie Crowley perform for the Chicago Poetry Center as a member of Patricia Rose:

Poetry Reading: Maria Barnas and Danielle Rosen

The poets will be reading in response to the current exhibition on view, Viviane Sassen: UMBRA. Maria Barnas is a Dutch writer, poet and artist whose work centers on the myriad ways description can shape reality. Barnas wrote a series of poems to accompany UMBRA, which she will recite during this event.

More info on Maggie Crowley⇒

Adams, Carris 2017

Thursday, March 30, 2017
with Danielle Rosen and Maggie Crowley (performed as Patricia Rose)
Museum of Contemporary Photography

 

 

View some of Carris Adams’ visual art here:

Work

Adams is represented by Goldfinch Gallery in Chicago, IL

Read this interview with Carris Adams from VoyageChicago:

http://voyagechicago.com/interview/meet-carris-adams-carris-adams-studio-located-bronzeville/

Watch Carris Adams perform for the Chicago Poetry Center as a member of Patricia Rose:

Poetry Reading: Maria Barnas and Danielle Rosen

The poets will be reading in response to the current exhibition on view, Viviane Sassen: UMBRA. Maria Barnas is a Dutch writer, poet and artist whose work centers on the myriad ways description can shape reality. Barnas wrote a series of poems to accompany UMBRA, which she will recite during this event.

More info on Carris Adams⇒

Carris Adams is a visual artist whose practice visually investigates markers of domesticated space. The conceptually multi-layered works seek to inform and position viewers to recognize their assumptions, recall an experience and perhaps note how societal markers materialize in the landscape. Adams received her BFA from the University  of Texas at Austin (2013) and her MFA from the University of Chicago (2015).

Rosen, Danielle 2017

Thursday, March 30, 2017
with Maggie Crowley and Carris Adams (performed as Patricia Rose)
Museum of Contemporary Photography

bw+elbow

 A hole cut into a wall is another way of saying: flatness is not
the opposite of space. In addition: there is always more than one conclusion.
And: there are always multiple beginnings. 

              – Danielle Rosen with Patricia Rose, “Wordplay is Wordplay”

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Read this interview with Danielle Rosen:

http://voyagechicago.com/interview/meet-professional-artist-wicker-park/

Watch Danielle Rosen perform as a member of Patricia Rose at a Chicago Poetry Center event:

Poetry Reading: Maria Barnas and Danielle Rosen from MoCP, Columbia College Chicago on Vimeo.

More info on Danielle Rosen⇒

Quesada, Ruben 2017

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

bw+elbow

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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Watch Ruben Quesada read here:

More info on Ruben Quesada⇒

Woody, Daniel 2017

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

bw+elbow

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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More info on Daniel Woody⇒

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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Watch Ed Roberson read here:

More info on Ed Roberson⇒

Wilson, Keith S. 2017

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

bw+elbow

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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More info on Keith S. Wilson⇒

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.

More info on Kathy Fagan⇒