CPL Celebrates Poetry Month With Poetry Fest at Harold Washington Library Center

CPL Celebrates Poetry Month With Poetry Fest at Harold Washington Library Center

Chicago Public Library celebrates Poetry Month in April, with events and workshops at branch locations throughout the city and culminating in the free, day-long Poetry Fest Saturday, April 28 at Harold Washington Library Center.

Complete Poetry Month details, including recommended reads for kids, teens and adults, can be found at www.chipublib.org/poetry.

POETRY FEST LINEUP

KEYNOTE PERFORMANCE: GROWING CONCERNS POETRY COLLECTIVE

2-3:30 p.m. | Pritzker Auditorium

Growing Concerns fuses lyrical, narrative, and hip-hop poetry with original music and soundscape to create spoken word performance that is greater than the sum of its parts. The group’s deeply personal work explores the nature of identity, love, community, and social responsibility, though a fresh and contemporary lens. The collective has performed throughout Chicago including at Steppenwolf Theatre, the MCA, and for WBEZ. Growing Concerns is comprised of poet and rapper Mykele Deville, poet and actor McKenzie Chinn, and visual artist and musician Jeff Austin.

14TH ANNUAL HAIKU FESTIVAL AWARDS

10 a.m.-noon | Pritzker Auditorium

The program features winning poetry from 8-14 year olds and Tsukasa Taiko Japanese hand drummers.

VERBALIZE IT: HOW THE BEST ACTION WORD CAN ENLIVEN YOUR POEM

11 a.m.-noon | Multipurpose Room A

Led by Wilda Morris, this workshop will help you enliven your poetry. Any kind of verb, even a passive one, may be what your poem needs. The question is how to decide when it strengthens your poem and when it weakens it. Activities and sample poems will help participants improve their writing of both poetry and prose. Wilda Morris is Workshop Chair of Poets & Patrons, and past president of the Illinois State Poetry Society.

AFTER HOURS PRESS READING

11 a.m.-noon | Reception Hall

After Hours, a journal of Chicago writing and art, hosts a poetry reading by three magazine contributors, Rachel Slotnick, Nina Corwin and Steven Schroeder, and After Hours co-editor/publisher/poet, Albert DeGenova.

POEMS WHILE YOU WAIT

11 a.m.-3 p.m. | Grand Lobby and Lower Level Lobby

Poets will write you your very own personal poem on our handy, vintage typewriters! Give us your topic and in about 20 minutes your poem will be ready to take home and cherish.

FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE

12-1:30 p.m. | Multipurpose Room B

Led by Nina Corwin, this workshop will offer tools used by performance poets around the country for making your poems come to life before an audience. The program includes a talk about stage presence, vocal delivery, and common pitfalls. Corwin is the author of two books of poetry, The Uncertainty of Maps and Conversations With Friendly Demons and Tainted Saints, as well as two chapbooks, Dear Future and What to Pack for the Apocalypse.

ELHILLO AND SAX SHARE THEIR POETRY

12:30-1:30 p.m. | Reception Hall

Elhillo, who has received fellowships from Cave Canem, The Conversation, Crescendo Literary, and The Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Incubator, is the author of The January Children. A two time Bay Area Grand Slam Champion, sam sax is the author of Madness and his second book, Bury It won the 2017 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets.

THE SHAPE OF LANGUAGE

1-2 p.m. | Video Theater

Led by Phillip Williams, this craft talk will discuss the importance of form in poetry, specifically with the concrete poem, which is a poem shaped like the thing it represents. The presentation will include a look at a few concrete poems and the audience will be asked to think about how what they say is made more powerful by how it is said, paying close attention to the feeling one gets when confronting the poem visually as well as the ways in which language enhances those feelings by making historical connections. Phillip B. Williams was born in Chicago. He is a Cave Canem graduate and the poetry editor of the online journal Vinyl Poetry. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award and teaches at Bennington College.

OPEN MIC WITH ROBBIE Q. TELFER

3-4 p.m. | Reception Hall

Robbie Telfer is a performance poet, teacher, and community organizer. He has performed and taught in numerous venues and institutions around the world. His first book of poetry, Spiking the Sucker Punch was released in 2009. Registration on the day of Poetry Fest is required.

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