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Vorreyer, Donna 2016

Thursday, January 28, 2016
with Fatimah Asghar
Grace Church of Logan Square

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 Not ready to sleep
in its restless bed, I weave a necklace
of seaweed, paddle my way back to you —
no blue is that blue. 

– Donna Vorreyer, “The Lost Art of Giving Up”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Read this interview with Donna Vorreyer from Sundress Publications:

Interview with Donna Vorreyer – The Sundress Blog

Donna Vorreyer is the author of Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (Sundress Publications, 2016) and A House of Many Windows (Sundress Publications, 2013) as well as seven chapbooks, most recently Encantado, a collaboration with artist Matt Kish from Redbird Chapbooks. She is the reviews editor for Stirring: A Literary Collection, and she …

When we meet again, you notice
something in the air – lilacs
or lullabies, a subtle change
in the horizon’s line.

– Donna Vorreyer, “Preamble”

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Listen to this radio show featuring Donna Vorreyer from WAYOfm:

More info on Donna Vorreyer⇒

Asghar, Fatimah 2016

Thursday, January 28, 2016
with Donna Vorreyer
Grace Church of Logan Square
Saturday, April 9, 2016
with Ladan Osman and Roger Reeves
Tea Project at Links Hall

Asghar_Fatimah(-Jason-Riker)

Today, I broke your solar system. Oops.
My bad. Your graph said I was supposed
to make a nice little loop around the sun.

– Fatimah Asghar, “Pluto Shits on the Universe”

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Read this interview with Fatimah Asghar from Bitch Media:

Pair Domains – Dynamic DNS

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 How I played football
 with the boys in the school park
 & let my moustache grow longer
 than anyone in my class
 & isn’t that a type of girlhood
 Too? 

– Fatimah Asghar, “Mother”

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Watch Fatimah Asghar’s TedxRushU talk:

We Own All the Language in the World | Fatimah Asghar | TEDxRushU

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Watch the web series, Brown Girls, Fatimah Asghar wrote here:

Episodes – Brown Girls Web Series

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More info on Fatimah Asghar⇒

Sánchez, Erika L. 2015

Wednesday, December 9, 2015
with Richie Hoffman
Chicago Cultural Center

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 a gaggle of silent children
gather before a sputtering
trash bin. Together they watch
the terror hover like flies. 

– Erika L. Sánchez, “Kingdom of Debt”

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Read this interview with Erika L. Sánchez from NBC:

What I’ve Learned: ‘Poetry Chose Me,’ Says Writer Erika L. Sánchez

Erika L. Sánchez, a poet, writer and sex columnist, talks of the importance of embracing art as a career and finding one’s voice.

 A man on the street tears the gold
necklace from your mother’s neck—
this is how you learn that nothing
will belong to you. In your mangled
language, you’ll count all the reasons
you wish to die, the apartment bristling
with roaches. 

– Erika L. Sánchez, “Girl”

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Watch Erika L. Sánchez read some of her work at Bonk! Performance Art Series:

More info on Erika L. Sánchez⇒

Hoffman, Richie 2015

Wednesday, December 9, 2015
with Erika L. Sánchez
Chicago Cultural Center

richie-hofmann-at-petit-trianon-versailles

We always arrived late,
sometimes in masks. You wore a sword
at your side. The heads that watched
our little pageant were busts of the great composers
and not men lined up for the executions.

– Richie Hoffman, “At The Palais Garnier”

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Read this interview with Richie Hoffman from divedapper:

DIVEDAPPER // Richie Hofmann

“The world has already written the poem.”

 Didn’t rain choke the animal throats
of the cathedral      sputter
against the roofs of the city      didn’t the flight
of stairs rise up above the cobbled street
didn’t the key clamor
in the lock 

– Richie Hoffman, “Keys to the City”

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Listen to Richie Hoffman read one of his poems:

The Adroit Journal – Issue Nine: Richie Hofmann | The Adroit Journal – The Adroit Journal

Richie Hofmann’s debut collection of poems, Second Empire, is winner of the Beatrice Hawley Award and is forthcoming from Alice James Books in 2015. He is the recipient of a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and his poems appear in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, and Poetry.

More info on Richie Hoffman⇒

Poets Look at Paintings 2015

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

About the event:

Join the Poetry Center of Chicago for a revival of Poets Look at Paintings. The original event in 1973 marked the beginning of the Poetry Center and we’re thrilled to have culled a top-notch line up of poets from an open call for submissions. These poets will each read one ekphrastic poem that wowed us in the submission review process. Admission is free and open to the public in the Garland Room on the first floor of the Chicago Cultural Center.

Featuring:

Christopher Kempf
Nissa Holtkamp
Tiffany Austin
Natasha Mijares
Sarah Ann Winn
Virginia Bell
Paul Asta
Natania Rosenfeld
Naoko Fujimoto

Bar-Nadav, Hadara 2015

Wednesday, October 21, 2015
with Jennifer Moore
Six Points Reading Series

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After the bombs
and the buildings blow
I call Clover, Clover,
and you appear–
a dream limned in smoke.

– Hadara Bar-Nadav, “Blur”

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Read this interview with Hadara Bar-Nadav from MLive:

Interview: Poet Hadara Bar-Nadav discusses her work, ‘the fracture of narrative and form’

Bar-Nadav will read from her work as part of the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center’s continuing Poets in Print reading series, beginning at 7 p.m. March 12 in Suite 103A of the Park Trades Building, at 326 W. Kalamazoo Ave.

I slept with all four hooves
in the air or I slept like a snail
in my broken shell.

– Hadara Bar-Nadav, “Lullaby (with Exit Sign)”

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Watch Hadara Bar-Nadav read her work:

Hadara Bar-Nadav Reads for Huffington Post

Hadara Bar Nadav reads from her newest collection of poetry Fountain and Furnace (Tupelo Press, 2015), which was awarded the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize.

More info on Hadara Bar-Nadav⇒

Moore, Jennifer 2015

Wednesday, October 21, 2015
with Hadara Bar-Nadav
Chicago Cultural Center

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I took aim and let the horseshoe go;
it hooked the stake in the sand and landed.
Two dead and three, then three ringers three.
Non-contact sports have their own erotic appeal.

– Jennifer Moore, “I Took Aim and Let the Horseshoe Go”

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Read this interview with Jennifer Moore from Memorious Mag:

Poetry Spotlight: Contributor Jennifer Moore

Jennifer Moore is the author of the newly released The Veronica Maneuver (University of Akron Press) and the chapbook What the Spigot Said (High5 Press). Her poems have appeared in American Letters & Commentary, Best New Poets, Columbia Poetry Review, Barrow Street, and elsewhere, including Memorious, where the poem “The Veronica Maneuver” first appeared.

A bee died on the carpet. A bee died
and I vacuumed him up, a whole body gone.
Though it’s just an apparatus, a plastic wand,
it’s a privilege for the sucker to suck.

– Jennifer Moore, “A Bee Died on the Carpet”

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Watch this interview with Jennifer Moore:

More info on Jennifer Moore⇒

Mennies, Rachel 2015

Thursday, September 24, 2015
with Sara Henning
Chicago Cultural Center

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I grow a back for bearing, a mouth
for preference.
I want the garden green and gold
and red, to tongue
its nothing seeds, its shit.

– Rachel Mennies, “First Draft of the Teenage Girl”

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Watch Rachel Mennies read for the Chicago Poetry Center, with Sara Henning:

Read this interview with Rachel Mennies from Hayden’s Ferry Review:

http://haydensferryreview.blogspot.com/2012/03/where-are-they-now-rachel-mennies.html

It begins between pinched fingers,
the sting of salt inside a bitten nail.
When I first looked away from you,
I found two ants cresting the pantry door,
breadcrumb boulders in their mouths,
overwhelmed.

– Rachel Mennies, “Argument”

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More info on Rachel Mennies⇒

Henning, Sara 2015

Thursday, September 24, 2015
with Rachel Mennies
Chicago Cultural Center

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In your mouth I find the story of my body
you’ll trade for a psalm to grow in the snow,
psalm you’ll feed to starlings

– Sara Henning, “Aubade with Starlings and What Serenely Disdains to Destroy Us”

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Read this interview with Sara Henning from Rappahannock Review:

http://www.rappahannockreview.com/interviews/interview-sara-henning/

They’re calling them sisters, funnels grafted
to the same spine of rotating air, but I know
they’re lovers by how my jet turns wet
and reckless between squalls, by how the squalls
are raptured from the same nexus of desire.

– Sara Henning, “During the Tornado, I’m Thinking of Stars”

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Watch Sara Henning read for the Chicago Poetry Center, with Rachel Mennies:

The Poetry Center of Chicago: Six Points Reading Series

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More info on Sara Henning⇒

Lemke, Dolly 2015

Thursday, August 6, 2015
with Fred Sasaki
Chicago Cultural Center

Her words became us    a honey that hurt
Suppose we could describe movement
through bluestem and aster

– Dolly Lemke, “Girl Cento”

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Read this interview with Dolly Lemke from Columbia Poetry Reviews:

http://columbiapoetryreviews.colum.edu/dollhouse-reading-series-curators-dolly-

 however those unhappy flowers are spelt
I will make room for the ranunculus, there are many parts of the ringlets and facets.  Simple for the lichen
to mock the angel.  You could chart everything by the organization of this tree.

– Dolly Lemke, “Woman descending stairs as if a portrait is made upon arrival.”

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Watch Dolly Lemke read her work:

Dolly Lemke @ Poetry & Pints

Grand Rapids, 1.20.2013, Harmony Brewing Company

More info on Dolly Lemke⇒

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