Join us for a canonizing, bold, and urgent anthology setting a new precedent for Black Punk Lit, created by generations of Black punks—featuring both new voices and those from the not-so-recent past. (From Skylight Books’s website)
*Please note: This event will take place live on Crowdcast. RSVP here to join the livestream or watch the replay.
Bluest Nude: Poems (Milkweed Editions)
Ama Codjoe's highly anticipated debut collection brings generous light to the inner dialogues of women as they bathe, create art, make and lose love. Each poem rises with the urgency of a fully awakened sensual life. Codjoe's poems explore how the archetype of the artist complicates the typical expectations of women: be gazed upon, be silent, be selfless, reproduce. Dialoguing with and through art, Bluest Nude considers alternative ways of holding and constructing the self. From Lorna Simpson to Gwendolyn Brooks to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, contemporary and ancestral artists populate Bluest Nude in a choreography of Codjoe's making. Precise and halting, this finely wrought, riveting collection is marked by an acute rendering of highly charged emotional spaces. Purposefully shifting between the role of artist and subject, seer and seen, Codjoe's poems ask what the act of looking does to a person--public looking, private looking, and that most intimate, singular spectacle of looking at one's self. What does it mean to see while being seen? In poems that illuminate the tension between the possibilities of openness and and its impediments, Bluest Nude offers vulnerability as a medium to be immersed in and, ultimately, shared as a kind of power: "There are as many walls inside me / as there are bones at the bottom of the sea," Codjoe writes in the masterful titular poem. "I want to be seen clearly or not at all." "The end of the world has ended," Codjoe's speaker announces, "and desire is still / all I crave."Startling and seductive in equal measure, this formally ambitious collection represents a powerful, luminous beginning.
Ama Codjoe is the author of Bluest Nude and Blood of the Air, winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. She has been awarded support from Cave Canem, Robert Rauschenberg, and Saltonstall foundations as well as from Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Hawthornden, Hedgebrook, Yaddo, and MacDowell. Her recent poems have appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, The Best American Poetry series and elsewhere. Among other honors, Codjoe has received fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council/New York Foundation of the Arts, and the Jerome Foundation.
Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is (directed by Taibi Magar at Soho Rep/Ola Ince at the Royal Court) won the Relentless Award, an OBIE for playwriting and the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award. What to Send Up When It Goes Down (directed by Whitney White at The Movement Theatre Company), was featured in American Theatre Magazine and received a special commendation from the Blackburn Prize. The play was subsequently re-mounted at Woolly Mammoth, A.R.T., BAM and Playwrights Horizons. Her newest play, On Sugarland (directed by Whitney White) premiered at New York Theatre Workshop in 2022. Awards: Windham-Campbell Literary Prize, Mimi Steinberg Playwriting Award, Hermitage Greenfield Prize, Horton Foote Playwriting Award, Arts and Letters Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Harris is a two-time MacDowell Fellow and has enjoyed residencies at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Hedgebrook and Djerassi.
Ashaki M. Jackson, Ph.D., is a social psychologist, program evaluator and poet. Her work has appeared in CURA: A Literary Magazine of Art and Action, Pluck! Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture, Midnight Breakfast, McSweeney's, and Prairie Schooner among other journals and anthologies. The author of two chapter-length books -- Surveillance (Writ Large Press) and Language Lesson (Miel) -- Jackson is also Publisher at The Offing magazine of art and literature. She earned her MFA (poetry) from Antioch University Los Angeles and her doctorate (social psychology) from Claremont Graduate University. She lives in Los Angeles.
Praise for Bluest Nude -
"How beautifully seen, tended, and rendered are our many Black lives under this poet's exquisite gaze. In appetite and loss, rage and praise, what animates these poems is a profound cherishing, an abiding (and yet at every turn surprising) love rushing out from the lush wilderness of Ama Codjoe's rapturous imagination. Bluest Nude is an ecstatic encounter." —Tracy K. Smith
"Sensual, sound-driven, and brimming with a necessary truth, the poems in Bluest Nude are pulsating with both grief and beauty. Wrought out of resurrection and reclaiming, these brilliant poems honor the mystery and legacy of the body. Codjoe has written a true triumph of a debut that feels urgent and deeply human." —Ada Limon
"It is hard to find words for the fineness of Ama Codjoe's poetry, its unabashed and luminous vibrancy. She unframes old myths about beauty and femininity and care to bring them intimately into the experience of the body where she forges far more supple visions. Her language is so rich and resourceful that, as it enlarges lyric possibilities, it also enlarges human ones. Never have I been so convinced that the desire to know oneself and the desire to be the agent of one's own radical self-making can be audacious and brilliant collaborators." —Mary Szybist
“Codjoe’s poems made me ache in the best way. These poems call forward our many mothers—in pictures and pages—they create a vibrant salon pulsing with the confidence of a poet’s urgent, material response. Exquisitely balanced between premonition and memory, Bluest Nude is a gathering and conjuring of improvisation and reflection, sensuality and joy, call and response.” —Ellen Gallagher
Join us virtually on Sunday, April 18, 2021 from 6-8pm for the next reading by the First Person Plural Reading Series featuring Ed Baptist, Ashaki Jackson, I.S. Jones, Kristin Palm, and Alison Stine, hosted by Stacy Parker Le Melle. Grateful in advance for the fantastic poetry and prose we will hear this night. Admission is free. Zoom login information will be shared prior to the event.
Registration link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/first-person-plural-reading-series-virtual-april-18-2021-tickets-148298929089
More about the readers:
Ed Baptist grew up in Durham, North Carolina. He went to DC to attend Georgetown University. One day he was playing pickup basketball in the gym, and John Thompson was watching, but somehow Ed never got an invite to walk-on to the basketball team. So after he received his undergraduate degree he moved on and got his Ph.D. in History at the University of Pennsylvania. At Cornell, he is Professor in the Department of History. Together with faculty colleagues from four other universities, Baptist leads Freedom on the Move http://freedomonthemove.org, a collaborative effort to build a crowdsourced database of all North American fugitive slave ads. The author of The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, (2014) and Creating an Old South: Middle Florida’s Plantation Frontier Before the Civil War (2002), he also co-edited New Studies in the History of American Slavery with the late Stephanie Camp.
Dr. Ashaki M. Jackson, a Cave Canem and VONA alumna, is the author of two chapter-length collections -- Surveillance (Writ Large Press, 2016) and Language Lesson (Miel, 2016). Currently an Executive Editor at The Offing, she served on the VIDA: Women in Literary Arts Board and mentored for both the PEN USA Emerging Voices program and WriteGirl. Jackson, along with Alyss Dixson and Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, also co-founded Women Who Submit, a national community that supports women and nonbinary writers in submitting their literary works to top tier publications. Readers may find her poetry and essays in Obsidian, 7x7 LA, CURA, Prairie Schooner, Midnight Breakfast, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Bettering American Poetry, among other publications. She earned her MFA (poetry) from Antioch University Los Angeles and her doctorate (social psychology) from Claremont Graduate University.
I.S. Jones is a queer American Nigerian poet and music journalist. She is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole and holds fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, and Brooklyn Poets. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Guernica, Washington Square Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hobart Pulp, The Rumpus, The Offing, Shade Literary Arts, Blood Orange Review and elsewhere. Her work was chosen by Khadijah Queen as a finalist for the 2020 Sublingua Prize for Poetry. She is an MFA candidate in Poetry at UW–Madison as well as the Inaugural 2019–2020 Kemper K. Knapp University Fellowship recipient. Her chapbook Spells Of My Name is forthcoming with Newfound in 2021.
Kristin Palm is the author of a poetry collection, The Straits, and co-editor of Absent but Present: Voices from the Writer’s Block. Her poetry and essays have also appeared in the anthologies The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind, To Light a Fire: 20 Years with the InsideOut Literary Arts Project, Kindergarde: Avant-garde Stories, Plays, and Songs for Children and Bay Poetics. As a journalist, she has contributed to numerous publications including The New York Times, Metropolis and the San Francisco Chronicle. She has taught writing in schools and community venues in Detroit and the San Francisco Bay Area. She lives in Detroit, where she is a freelance writer and editor, nonprofit communications director and co-facilitator of the weekly Writer’s Block poetry workshop at Macomb Correctional Facility.
Alison Stine works as a freelance journalist at The New York Times. Her first novel Road Out of Winter, was published in 2020 (MIRA Books/HarperCollins), and is a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award. She is also the author of several books of poetry, including Ohio Violence (University of North Texas Press). Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The Washington Post, and others. Recipient of grants from the NEA, the Ohio Arts Council, NYU Journalism, and National Geographic, she is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Her next novel Trashlands will be published by MIRA Books/HarperCollins in October 2021.
About the host:
Stacy Parker Le Melle is the author of Government Girl: Young and Female in the White House (HarperCollins/Ecco), was the lead contributor to Voices from the Storm: The People of New Orleans on Hurricane Katrina and Its Aftermath (McSweeney’s), and chronicles stories for The Katrina Experience: An Oral History Project. She is a 2020 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow for Nonfiction Literature. Her recent narrative nonfiction has been published in Callaloo, Apogee Journal, The Atlas Review, Cura, Kweli Journal, Nat. Brut, The Nervous Breakdown, The Offing, Phoebe, Silk Road and The Florida Review where the essay was a finalist for the 2014 Editors’ Prize for nonfiction. Originally from Detroit, Le Melle lives in Harlem where she curates the First Person Plural Reading Series. Follow her on Twitter at @stacylemelle.
Poets and editors Duriel E. Harris (“Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora”) and Ashaki M. Jackson (“The Offing”) discuss their editorial careers, the mission and work of the journals they manage, and working with and advocating for Black writers.
This virtual event will be broadcasted via Zoom. Please register here.
Conceptual artist and scholar, Duriel E. Harris is the author of three critically acclaimed volumes of poetry: Drag (2003); Amnesiac: Poems (2010); and No Dictionary of a Living Tongue (Nightboat, 2017), finalist for the Audre Lorde Award. Multi-genre works include the one-woman theatrical performance Thingification, the videopoem collaboration Speleology, and the conceptual sound-image project Blood Labyrinth. Appearances include performances at the Greenhouse Theater, the Chicago Jazz Festival, Naropa, Babylon Cinema (Berlin), Votive (Auckland), Babel Theatre (Beirut), the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Festival Internacional de Poesía de La Habana. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, BAX, Letters to the Future, Of Poetry and Protest, the &Now Awards, Imagined Theatres, PEN America, and Poets.org, among others. Harris is Professor of English at Illinois State University and Editor of the award-winning literary magazine Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora.
Dr. Ashaki M. Jackson is the author of two chapter-length collections, including Language Lesson (Miel, 2016). An Executive Editor at The Offing, Jackson’s writing is included in Obsidian, CURA, Prairie Schooner, Midnight Breakfast, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and Bettering American Poetry, among other publications. She is a social psychologist and program evaluator residing in Los Angeles, California.
Black CENTER: An Online Poetry Reading
Thursday, December 3, 2020
2:30 PM Pacific/5:30 PM Eastern
Zoom webinar
Join eight celebrated writers for an hourlong poetry reading commemorating the opening of Cal State Fullerton's Institute of Black Intellectual Innovation (IBII)!
Featuring Tommye Blount, Nandi Comer, t'ai freedom ford, Luther Hughes, Nabila Lovelace, Joy Priest, Phillip B. Williams, and Keith S. Wilson
Ashaki M. Jackson hosts.
This is a free event. On the event date, log into tinyurl.com/BLACKCENTER. The webinar ID is 968 5822 9617.
Questions? Contact Dr. Natalie Graham (NGraham@fullerton.edu). Learn more about the Institute at hss.fullerton.edu/ibii/.
This is a free event.
The L.A. Times Book Club presents a special book club evening, Black Poets in a Time of Unrest, featuring National Book Award winner Robin Coste Lewis in conversation with Times reporter Makeda Easter.
Lewis is the Los Angeles poet laureate, author of “Voyage of the Sable Venus” and a writer in residence at USC. She’ll talk about her tenure as the city’s reigning laureate and life as a poet.
She joins a lineup of poet performers sharing their experiences in verse. Among them:
Natalie J. Graham is the author of “Begin with a Failed Body,” her debut poetry collection. She is a Cave Canem Fellow and chair of the African American Studies Department at Cal State Fullerton.
Ashaki M. Jackson is the author of two chapter-length collections, including “Language Lesson.” She is a social psychologist and program evaluator in Los Angeles.
Douglas Kearney is the author of six books and will publish his newest book, “Sho," in 2021. He grew up in Pasadena and now teaches Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities.
jayy dodd is the author of “Mannish Tongues” & “The Black Condition ft. Narcissus.” Born in Los Angeles and now based in Portland, her film and performance work has been installed and screened across the country from classrooms to museums.
Amaud Jamaul Johnson is the author of three poetry collections, “Red Summer,” “Darktown Follies” and “Imperial Liquor.” Born and raised in Compton, he is former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and is now an English professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing.
Khadijah Queen is the author of six books, including “I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On.” Her latest book, “Anodyne,” was published in August by Tin House.
Kima Jones is a Los Angeles poet and founder of Jack Jones Literary Arts. She is co-host of the event with the L.A. Times Book Club.
This free virtual book club event starts at 7 p.m. on Sept. 24 and will be live streaming on the Los Angeles Times Facebook page, YouTube and Twitter.
Support Skylight Books by ordering copies of these poets' books here.
Sign up for the L.A. Times Book Club newsletter for book news and event updates.
While RSVPing is not necessary to attend this virtual event, we recommend that you RSVP to receive a reminder email with direct links to view on Facebook and YouTube.
A literary reading with bridgette bianca, F. Douglas Brown, Camari Carter-Hawkins, Natashia Deón, and Ashaki M. Jackson
According to the National Museum of African American History & Culture: “Juneteenth marks our country’s second independence day. Though it has long been celebrated among the African American community, it is a history that has been marginalized and still remains largely unknown to the wider public. The legacy of Juneteenth shows the value of deep hope and urgent organizing in uncertain times.”
People across America and around the world are rising up to demand justice because Black lives matter. We are celebrating Juneteenth, its history and its lessons, with poets who’ll share their words with us. At an online gathering featuring bridgette bianca, F. Douglas Brown, Camari Carter-Hawkins, Natashia Deón, and Ashaki M. Jackson, we’ll be raising money for Black Lives Matter LA and other social justice organizations.
The event is free to attend via Zoom, Facebook Live, or YouTube. All proceeds from pay-what-you-will Eventbrite tickets will be dispersed to Black Lives Matter LA. In addition, the organizers will share direct links to donate to a short list of other social justice organizations.
About the BookSwell Read and Relate series
To keep connections alive between readers and writers during troubled times, BookSwell is organizing Read & Relate, a virtual video chat salon celebrating books, writers, and the literary life.
We'll be using Zoom to conduct the salon and the feed will also be shared via Facebook Live and YouTube. Audio and video may be recorded and re-shared via BookSwell's social media channels.
The Exposition Park - Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune Regional Library of the Los Angeles Public Library system is a collaborating partner on the BookSwell Read & Relate series. The library hosts events online in support of the Library at Home program of the Los Angeles Public Library.
JOIN US for the next Say the Word: a reading series event, organized by Dawna Kemper and Sandy Yang, showcasing the depth and breadth of LA's literary talents (and beyond).
Our brilliant line-up for our first event of 2020 will feature prose and poetry from John Balma, Allison Deegan, Ashaki M. Jackson, Laura Warrell and Lori White.
The reading is free and open to the public. We look forward to seeing you there!
Join Women Who Submit 's Ashaki M. Jackson as she describes steps to submitting literary work. Attendees will participate in a discussion on what the submission process can contribute to the writing practice. Ashaki will guide attendees in shaping their submission goals then move through the steps, from preparation to tracking. Attendees will complete the workshop having sent one piece of work (or one short manuscript) to a literary publication. Attendees should bring a laptop with WiFi capacity and a short story or a set of five poems to submit. Ashaki M. Jackson is a Cave Canem alumna, VONA alumna and co-founder of Women Who Submit. Her work appears in CURA and Prairie Schooner among other publications. She is the author of two chapter-length collections -- SURVEILLANCE (Writ Large Press) and LANGUAGE LESSON (MIEL). Jackson earned a creative writing MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles and a psychology doctorate from Claremont Graduate University. Learn more at www.ashakijackson.com. Women Who Submit seeks to empower women writers by creating physical and virtual spaces for sharing information, supporting and encouraging submissions to literary journals, and clarifying the submission and publication process. Now in its sixth year, Women Who Submit has approximately 20 chapters of women and nonbinary writers nationwide. Visit the community at www.WomenWhoSubmitLit.org.
Los Angeles, please join Elisabeth Houston and me at Beyond Baroque this Saturday evening (9/28) for her new play, Hospital Stories.
"This is a story of love and psychosis, politics and neglect."
The play begins at 8 p.m. Advance tickets are $10 and sold at bit.ly/hospital-stories. Tickets are also available at the door for $15. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Join us for conversations, performances, and lectures from these award-winning authors!
All events are free and open to the public!
2/12 - Karla Cordero @11am-12:15 pm in AL 105
2/26 - James Matlack Raney @11am-12:15 pm in AL 105
3/19 - Matt Phillips @11am-12:15 pm in AL 105
4/11 - Ashaki Jackson @11am-12:15 pm in Pride Suite Student Union (Poetic Youth Lecture Series & Humanities in Action )
4/17 - Andy Zack @2-3:15 pm in ARTN300B
4/25 - Kirsten Imani Kasai @11am-12:15 pm in AL 105
4/30 - Sheila McMullin @11am-12:15 pm in AL 105
Thanks to Poetry International, the Department of English & Comparative Literature, IRA funds, and Associated Students for their support of these events.
Many creative writers also teach in a variety of settings as they pursue their own writing goals. Writer-teachers support a broad range of students, from new to vulnerable to highly accomplished. Working in MFA programs, four-year and community colleges, K-12 settings, or in youth or community programs, the panelists show how to retain focus on their own work as they guide the journeys of students who need instruction, mentoring, and sometimes just a safe, supportive creative space to write.
With courts that convict just 2 percent of rapists, calling out predators publicly has become a vital tool in promoting the safety of vulnerable individuals. The members of this panel discuss candidly how they worked to call out prominent sexual predators, offering concrete tools for healing and advocacy. Their bold, ambitious aim: to end victim-shaming and silencing, foster protection of assault and harassment victims, and encourage greater professionalization in literary workplaces.
Experience Cave Canem’s annual Off-Site Reading at AWP Portland, hosted by Literary Arts! This year’s reading is headlined by Portland and Seattle-based Cave Canem fellows Quenton Baker, Ashaki M. Jackson, Bettina Judd, Anastacia-Renee and Christopher Rose, who will open the night before an additional 15+ fellows share their work in four-minute, rapid-fire intervals. Fellow and Portland resident Samiya Bashir emcees.
This year Get Lit was happy to host over 150 students and teachers from southern California at the Skirball Cultural Center. The event was a major success, and included renowned poets including, Los Angeles Poet Laureate, Robin Coste Lewis, Jeffrey McDaniel, Ashaki M. Jackson, and more! We were also very proud to offer a variety of workshops to our attendees, and build tighter connections with our students and teachers. Robin Coste Lewis delivered an amazing Keynote Workshop, and there were many great poetic performances to wrap up an exciting day at the Skirball. We’d like to thank Kelly Grace Thomas, and everyone else who helped bring this important event together. We’d also like to thank every student and teacher who attended, making this a powerful occasion in our year!
On the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s birth, comes a new portrait of one of the most inspiring historical figures of the twentieth century. Arrested in 1962 as South Africa’s apartheid regime intensified its brutal campaign against political opponents, forty-four-year-old lawyer and African National Congress activist Nelson Mandela had no idea that he would spend the next twenty-seven years in jail. During his 10,052 days of incarceration, Mandela wrote hundreds of letters to unyielding prison authorities, fellow activists, government officials, and most memorably to his wife, Winnie, and his five children. Now, 255 of these letters—a majority of which were previously unseen—provide an intimate view into the uncompromised morals of a great leader. In this special evening at ALOUD, Sahm Venter, the editor of this collection and a former Associated Press reporter who covered and was witness to Mandela’s release from prison in 1990, along with Zamaswazi Dlamini-Mandela, the granddaughter of Nelson and Winnie who wrote the foreword, will share the stage with writers to bring these deeply moving letters to life.
The Poetry Circus #5: The Future We Write
Free and Open to the Public / Fun for All Ages
What is The Poetry Circus:
The Poetry Circus is part workshop, community outreach, performance, ride, dance, and creation. This community event blurs the line between performer and audience to allow everyone the chance to run away and join the circus.
This Year's Poetry Circus:
This year's Poetry Circus will be held on July 21st at The Griffith Park Merry-go-round. Enjoy acts from 45 Southern California Poets, Bob Baker Marionette Theater, and The Poetry Cabaret. There will also be booth housing many literary organizations and educational outreach programs. Free Merry-go-rides! Face-painting! And light refreshments.
The event is from 5 PM - 10 PM--the perfect time and place to bring a picnic.
Roar Shack Reading Series presents “This Belongs to You” on Sunday, July 8 at 4 pm, at the world famous 826LA in Echo Park! Join us as we welcome another starry lineup: Josh Tager, Ernesto Cepeda, Erica Blumfield, Kenji Liu, Ashaki Jackson and Natalie Graham. Don’t miss it!
Please join Natalie J Graham and Ashaki M. Jackson as we read and be read from Citizen by Claudia Rankine
Natalie is a native of Gainesville, Florida. Natalie Graham earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Florida and Ph.D. in American Studies at Michigan State University. Her poems have appeared in Callaloo Journal,New England Review , Valley Voices: A Literary Review, and Southern Humanities Review ; and her articles have appeared in The Journal of Popular Culture and Transition. She is a Cave Canem fellow and associate professor of African American Studies CSUF at California State University, Fullerton. Begin with a Failed Body, her first full-length collection of poems, won the 2016 Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Natalie can be found atwww.nataliejgraham.com/
Ashaki M. Jackson is an applied social psychologist, program evaluator and poet who works with youth through research, evaluation and creative writing mentoring. She is a Cave Canem and VONA alumna who serves on theVIDA: Women in Literary Arts board. She is also co-founder of Women Who Submit. Her work appears in CURA and Prairie Schooner among other publications. Author of two chapter-length collections – Surveillance (Writ Large Press and Language Lesson (MIEL) – Jackson earned her creative writing MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles and a psychology doctorate from Claremont Graduate University. She lives in Los Angeles, California. Visit her at www.ashakijackson.com.
Thank you to Jack Jones Literary Arts for co-hosting this event.
The Table Lit Readings are a monthly series produced by Natashia Deon. Each month, a new team of hosts brings together a diverse collection of writers.
On March 11th, bridgette bianca and Sanura Williams of My Lit Box will host “Making Room for Black Women,” a reading featuring an incredible group of black women writers -- Darlene Kriesel, Ashaki Jackson, Jessica “Yellawoman” Gallion, Saliha DeVoe, Chenel King, and bridgette bianca.
Admission is FREE but we ask for a $5 cash donation at the door to go toward a gift for the featured readers! Each $5 donation will enter entrants into a raffle!
Come join us as we celebrate incredible art, artists, and the arrival of our 2016 print journals.
Featured Reader: Ashaki Jackson
Ashaki M. Jackson, Ph.D., is a Los Angeles-based social psychologist, program evaluator and poet. Her work has appeared in CURA: A Literary Magazine of Art and Action, Pluck! Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture, and Prairie Schooner among others and she has published two chapbooks, Language Lesson (August 2016) and Surveillance (March 2016).
Student Reader: Annakai Geshlider
Annakai 早川 Geshlider watches
words
scrape smash
scald feed
boost prank
rot born
wondering:
WHO GET TO SPEAK?
WHEN, WHERE? HOW, WHY?
She likes to gab, gawk, and go get boba. She currently serves on the board of Chancellor Gene D. Block’s Office for the Abolition of the Academic Industrial Complex. A devoted granddaughter, father, and horse-lover, she writes to unpack the ways in which capitalism fuels FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).
What is The Poetry Circus:
The Poetry Circus is part workshop, community outreach, performance, ride, dance, and creation. This community event blurs the line between performer and audience to allow everyone the chance to run away and join the circus.
This Year's Poetry Circus:
This August 26th (in celebration of the 97th anniversary
of the 19th Amendment) we will host 25 women poets, performers, as well as many literary organizations and literacy outreach programs.
By presenting poetry in an alternative venue, the egalitarian characteristics of poetry are amplified. Poetry IS for everyone, regardless of where we come from or how we got there; we all process and understand the world through metaphor.
ALOUD at Central Library
Resist, Disrupt, Transgress: Four Poets
Chiwan Choi, Natalie J. Graham, Ashaki M. Jackson and TK Lê
Poetry Reading
Join us for an electrifying evening of poetry as four bold writers from diverse backgrounds come together on the stage to explore their common experiences of loss through time and history. Navigating losses of home, of life, and of identity—from a family displaced by war to an examination of videos capturing police killing civilians—these local poets will read from their uncompromising work that perseveres despite loss by searching for ways to rise up and recover.
RESERVATIONS: http://lfla.org/event/resist-disrupt-transgress-four-poets/
FREE/ Reservations Recommended. For FREE reservations and more information, please visit www.lfla.org/aloud or call 213.292.6254
Reservation Policy for Free Programs:
As most ALOUD at Central Library programs are free of charge, it is our policy to overbook. In the case of a FULL program your free reservation may not guarantee admission. We recommend arriving early.
Space permitting, unclaimed reservations will be released to standby patrons at approximately 7 PM.
*Note: If online reservations for this program have reached capacity, then we are no longer accepting reservations. You are welcome to try the standby line on the night of the program- standby numbers are given out on a first-come, first-served basis starting at 6:15 PM. We do not take names in advance for standby.
Curated by: #90X90LA team
A day dedicated to honoring and learning from artists working in community and setting our own intentions for the community of artists we will become over the course of the summer.
11:00 am Welcome & Featured Speakers:
Chris Anthony (California Repertory Company, Will Power to Youth)
Ben R Caldwell (KAOS Network)
12:00 pm Cook Out/Pot Luck
We'll fire up the grill, if you bring a side dish/salad/dessert/beverage to share.
1:30 pm Art & Community Panel
Judeth Oden Choi (Writ Large Press)
Ashaki M. Jackson (Women Who Submit
Sean Miura (Tuesday Night Project)
Kyle Guy aka Verbs (Bananas)
Teresa Mei Chuc (Downtown Women's Center, School on Wheels)
Moderated by: Chris Anthony (California Repertory Company)
3:00 pm Community Discussion
A facilitated discussion on the shape of our 90X90LA community and an opportunity to set intentions for our community
4:00 pm Close
Join authors Julia Fierro, Ashaki M. Jackson, Mikel Wadewitz and Meg Howrey for an afternoon of exquisite readings, hosted by Julia Ingalls. Book sales by Mysterious Galaxy.
[Photo: "American Barque 'Jane Tudor,' Conway Bay" 1855 by David Johnson]
Like its predecessor, The Requiem for Sandra Bland, un::fade::able is an effort to keep Sandra Bland's voice & legacy alive through education, music and poetry, all revolving around topics of: the safety of black lives, the criminal justice system, and police brutality. Art Share LA will host this poetry reading series and workshops, cruated by F. Douglas Brown, and assisted by a team of educators, community organizers, poets and musicians. We will never forget the events that took the life of Sandra Bland, and that continue to scourge our communities. In her name, we ACT.
SATURDAY WORKSHOPS - 2/18: 5/13: 7/15 ATTEND if interested in classroom resources, writing, collaboration, fellowship, community dialogue
TUESDAY READINGS - 2/28: 5/23: 7/25 OPEN MIC + FEATURED READERS + COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
For more information: www.artsharela.org or
email: browntown.poetry@gmail.com
photo credit: Andrew Mandinach
Jerry Garcia and Green Tara Press celebrate the publication of his poetry collection “On Summer Solstice Road" with friends and multimedia. Featuring liz gonzález, Ashaki Jackson, Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo and Robert Krut.
Beyond Baroque General Admission Policy:
Admission $10,
Students/Seniors/Children $6,
Members FREE.
PoetrIE is proud to present poet Ashaki Jackson.
Also reading: Maurisa Thompson and Micah Chatterton
When: Saturday October 15, 2016
Where: The San Bernardino Garcia Center for the Arts
526 W. 11th St. San Bernardino, Ca 92410
Time: 6:00-8:00 p.m.
Fee: This event is free but we accept donations. In fact, we strongly encourage them, so that the lights can stay on in the Garcia Center, and so that these readings can continue to be free and open to the public.
Light refreshments will be provided.
Writers will have their books for sale at the event-cash is preferred.
This event is made possible with the generosity of The San Bernardino Garcia Center for the Arts and with the support of Poets & Writers, Inc.
From her analysis on how we watch police brutality to her painful exploration of loss, Jackson's poetry forces the audience to submit to her artful rendering of grief and human fragility and strength.
Ashaki M. Jackson is an applied social psychologist, program evaluator and poet who works with youth through research, evaluation and creative writing mentoring. She is a Cave Canem alumna, VONA alumna and co-founder of Women Who Submit. Her work appears in CURA and Prairie Schooneramong other publications. Author of two chapter-length collections – Surveillance (Writ Large Press) and Language Lesson (MIEL) – Jackson earned her creative writing MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles and a psychology doctorate from Claremont Graduate University. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
About the workshop: Guided by poems written by Kimiko Hahn, Shane Book, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Eduardo C. Corral and Chiyuma Elliott, participants will briefly discuss space as a means to call for quiet in writing. We'll explore where space functions as a silencer and spend the period crafting terms and designing stanzas that call for quiet.
About the Facilitator: Ashaki M. Jackson is an applied social psychologist, program evaluator and poet who works with youth through research, evaluation and creative writing mentoring. She is a Cave Canem alumna, VONA alumna and co-founder of Women Who Submit. Her work appears inCURA and Prairie Schooner among other publications. Author of two chapter-length collections – Surveillance (Writ Large Press) and Language Lesson (MIEL) – Jackson earned her creative writing MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles and a psychology doctorate from Claremont Graduate University. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
Tickets: $80 per workshop / $60 WWS & PEN members
$200 for all 3 workshops / $150 WWS & PEN members
WWS Fall Workshop Series includes:
10/1 - On Silence in Poetry with Ashaki M. Jackson
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wws-fall-workshop-series-on-silence-in-poetry-with-ashaki-m-jackson-tickets-27335680757
11/5 - On Movement and Writing with Jay O’Shea
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wws-fall-workshop-series-on-movement-and-writing-with-jay-oshea-tickets-27336062900
12/3 - Public Notebook to Book with Wendy C. Ortiz https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wws-fall-workshop-series-public-notebook-to-book-with-wendy-c-ortiz-tickets-27336258485
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About Women Who Submit: Women Who Submit seeks to empower women writers by creating physical and virtual spaces for sharing information, supporting and encouraging submissions to literary journals, and clarifying the submission and publication process.
The Women Who Submit Fall Workshop Series, in partnership with PEN Center USA and Avenue 50 Studios, is a not-for-profit event created as a fundraiser for future WWS programming, events, and conference presentations. It is open to people of all genders, orientations, and creeds.
