The Chicago Poetry Center and The Green at 320 S. Canal are proud to reinstate this free, weekly reading and open mic series, co-curated by CPC poets in residence Tarnynon Onumonu and Timothy David Rey.
Join us in this beautiful setting on select Monday evenings from June through August from 6-7pm to hear outstanding poets reading their work as part of this partnership between the Chicago Poetry Center and The Green at 320 S. Canal. After each poetry performance, there will be an open mic for anyone who would like to share their own poems!
ABOUT THE ARTISTS PERFORMING IN JUNE:
June 3: Ola Faleti: Ola Faleti is a writer and arts educator who grew up and lives in Chicago. Her work has appeared in TriQuarterly, The Chicago Reader, Interim, Jet Fuel Review, and elsewhere. The curriculum for Ola’s workshop with 826CHI, “Poets in Revolt!”, was distributed nationally and spawned an anthology of young adult literature. She is currently a teaching artist at the Chicago Poetry Center. Her favorite number is nine, and she believes there can never be too many flowers.
June 10: Michelle Alexander: Michelle Alexander is an American-Trinidadian poet, writer of creative nonfiction, and a graduate of New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College of Chicago. Her work has appeared in Salt Hill. She is poet in residence at the Chicago Poetry Center.
June 17: Mayda Del Valle: Mayda del Valle was born and raised on Chicago’s Southside. She is the author of The University of Hip Hop and winner of the 2016 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize from Northwestern University Press. Her comprehensive collection, A South Side Girl’s Guide to Love and Sex, was published by Tia Chucha Press. She appeared in six episodes of the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry and was a contributing writer and original cast member of the Tony Award-winning Def Poetry Jam on Broadway.
June 24: Maya Odim: Maya Odim is a poet who explores how rhythms, patterns, and arrangements of words communicate and work in text and in gestures/body language in storytelling. Maya engages with this through writing and an evolving choreographic practice (for body language is also expression). Stories are captured by many different kinds of objects: bodies, walls, pages in a book, and Maya is interested in the ways in which both the body and the outside world capture this. Words are objects to live with, and poems can fill a room and a mind/ideas are the furnishings in both. As a poet and dancer, Maya works to create performances in community with others and sometimes in an effort to build with others. Maya has a BA in American Studies (Wesleyan University) and an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Maya lives and works in Chicago, often collaborating with artists both here and abroad. Currently, Maya’s work explores two specific ideas: first, the way cultural imagination (ideology) influences the way one learns to approach performance, and second, how words/texts can be part of the design of a physical space.
ABOUT THE CO-CURATORS:
Tarnynon (Ty-yuh-nuh) Onumonu is an artist and trained adjunct teacher born and raised in the Jeffery Manor neighborhood of Southeast Chicago. She is extremely proud and humbled by her South Side citizenship and West African ancestry. She placed second in the 2017 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards and represented Chicago on the Lethal Poetry Team at the 2018 National Poetry Slam. Since January 2019, she has been the Poet in Residence at the Chicago Poetry Center and has been featured in Newcity Magazine and South Side Weekly.
Timothy David Rey is a writer/performer working in poetry, plays, and monologues (both fictional and autobiographical). He teaches creative writing and acting throughout the Chicago area. He is a semifinalist for the Guild Literary Complex’s 2015 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Award and a winner of Project Exploration (The Poetry Center of Chicago 2004). He is the co-founder of the LBGT Solo Performance Showcase, Solo Homo (2002-2011). Timothy’s plays and acting have been seen and heard in venues throughout Chicago, as well as outside the state and in Panama.
ABOUT THE LOCATION:
The Green at 320 is a public park in the West Loop and offers numerous family-friendly activities and events this summer!
The Green at 320 is located behind the 320 S. Canal building, 1 block west of the river. The park’s main stair entrance is at the corner of Clinton and Van Buren, with a handicap-accessible ramp from Clinton. The park is 1 block north of the Clinton Blue Line stop. For transportation and location information, visit https://320southcanal.com/.
