Archive / 2020-Present

Del Valle, Mayda 2021

Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Reading Series with Hannah Gamble and Mayda Del Valle
Zoom

grandmother our common thread began in my mama’s womb
spun my fetus like a record in her cipher
sampled your stubborn and mixed in her fathers posture
our connection is full circle
abuela you bearer of children
you seer of spirits
you are truly miraculous

– Mayda Del Valle, “a faith like yours”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch Mayda Del Valle’s 2021 reading with Hannah Gamble at the Chicago Poetry Center:

Mayda Del Valle begins at 22:02 minutes.

Read Mayda Del Valle’s Interview with Williams College:

Writer and Performer | Mayda Del Valle | ’00

www.maydadelvalle.com Los Angeles, CA Mayda Del Valle is a renowned spoken word-artist. In 2001, she became the youngest person and first Latina to win the National Slam Poetry title. She subsequently appeared in four seasons of the HBO series “Def Comedy Jam” and in the Tony-winning production of “Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway,” including its national tour.

Watch Mayda Del Valle perform at LA Raise the Wage Rally:

More info on Mayda Del Valle⇒

Marshall, Maya 2020

Thursday, February 20, 2020
Reading Series with Marty McConnell and Maya Marshall
The Martin

I bleed daily
for a month,
produce a liver-shaped thing.
He rinses his blood
with a chemical cocktail
every third Thursday.
We make nothing—no child
no pacts—but distance,
until we both lose.

– Maya Marshall, “The Field of Blood”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch Maya Marshall read her poems and converse with Nicole Homer in this Poetry Foundation event:

I don’t know what I would do
if a man looked like my daddy hated me,
hated my sex all the more because I did not want him
to have it, or because I have wanted a woman too–

– Maya Marshall, “Portrait in the Lone Star”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Read this interview that Maya Marshall did with Black Women Radicals:

https://www.blackwomenradicals.com/blog-feed/radical-poetics-inside-the-radiant-mind-of-maya-marshall

More info on Maya Marshall⇒

McConnell, Marty 2015; 2020

Thursday, June 11, 2015
with Joel Craig
Chicago Cultural Center

Thursday, February 20, 2020
Reading Series with Marty McConnell and Maya Marshall
The Martin

Maybe it was the part in Runaway Bunny
where the mother rabbit grows wings
and becomes part bird to find her offspring
that grew in me a certainty that the disappeared
would always come back

– Marty McConnell, “The Gift”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Read this interview with Marty McConnell from 300 Questions:

17/30: Ten Questions With Marty McConnell

Marty McConnellI saw this interview with Michael Jordan once where he talked about that game vs. The Blazers. The one where he hit all of those threes and shrugged. He said the game was happening in slow motion for him. That everything was coming at him, and he was absorbing all of it, becoming a…

the noise
from the party a backdrop
of garbled babble and laughter,
wind against the windows,
the occasional casualty of glass.

– Marty McConnell, “West Barry Street”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Watch Marty McConnell read this poem:

More info on Marty McConnell⇒

Price, C. Russell 2015; 2024

Wednesday, January 21, 2015
with Valerie Wallace
Chicago Cultural Center

Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Blue Hour Reading Series with C. Russell Price and Teresa Dzieglewicz
Haymarket House

Kiss my cheek and think cul-de-sac,
think normative fence, think, my love,
of all the stars where better versions are breathing,
where the soft-focused-wanted me slowly wakes.

– C. Russell Price, “Our Love Transcends Sexuality & Gender & Time & Place; Translation: Not Now, Not Ever”

Continue reading this poem⇒

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

C. Russell Price begins at 41:47 minutes.

C. Russell Price reading at the Six Points Reading Series for the Poetry Center of Chicago

Listen to C. Russell Price, with Valerie Wallace, read for the Poetry Center of Chicago’s Six Points Reading Series:

When I call him after a proper cry in the office supply closet,
he asks what is drowning me today, as if memory is a growing leak,
as if he could offer some Oprah level shit.

– C. Russell Price, “Why Can’t My Heaven Be A Mobile Home Park In A Carolina Where I Have Big Hair and Work Reception at My Husband’s Tattoo Parlor?”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Listen to C. Russell Price read their poem “Apocalypse with Eyeliner”

Adroit Journal · C. Russell Price – Apocalypse With Eyeliner

More info on C. Russell Price⇒

Cumpián, Carlos 2005; 2022

Monday, November 14, 2005
with Ana Castillo

Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Blue Hour Reading Series with Jennifer Scappettone and Carlos Cumpián
Haymarket House

Four women wearing less than
What’s wrapped in ribbon around
Their lances bounce freely alongside
13 elephants that line up, turn, mount,
And massage each other,

– Carlos Cumpián, “The Circus”

Broadside of “The Circus” by Carlos Cumpián

Buy this broadside⇒

Watch Carlos Cumpián’s 2022 reading with Jennifer Scappettone at the Poetry Center of Chicago:

Carlos Cumpián begins at 48:08 minutes.

Read this article about Carlos Cumpián from the Chicago Reader:

Spirit Guide – Chicago Reader

Carlos Cumpian on Poetry, Chicano Culture, and the Emergency Taco

Smokers huddle at a thousand doors,
withdrawing 12 minutes every day
from the new-world mirage,
no one inhales the same anymore,
as mosquito-mean bosses look for blood in
every dollar, expecting us to laugh to forget our stress.

– Carlos Cumpián, “Soon It’s Robots”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Listen to Carlos Cumpián read “When Jesus Walked:”