Join The Public Square at the IHC and the West Englewood Branch of the Chicago Public Library for an ongoing series of events that uses the arts as a springboard for discussion and community participation!

Raised in Chicago and now living in New York, spoken word artist KELLY TSAI tours nationally with Mango Tribe and We Got Issues. She is the author of “Inside Outside, Outside Inside”, a co-founder of Sirenz multicultural women’s spoken word group, and has been a feature performer at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, Nuyorican Poets Café, Insight Arts’ Women’s Performance Jam, Chicago’s Louder Than A Bomb Teen Poetry Slam, and Russell Simmons’ HBO Def Poetry Jam.

Writer/educator/performer TARA BETTS is a winner of the Guild Complex’s Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award. She appeared in Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues, the Black Family Channel series “SPOKEN” with Jessica Care Moore, and her work has been adapted for the production of “Words on Fire” at the Steppenwolf Theatre. Tara has taught writing workshops at Chicago area schools, Cook County Jail, and the Juvenile Detention Center.

Chicago hip-hop poet and performance artist KEVIN COVAL has appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, in The Chicago Tribune, Spoken Word Revolution, Chicago Reporter, and can be heard regularly on WBEZ’s 848 on Chicago Public Radio. Kevin teaches creative writing with Young Chicago Authors to build the emerging youth writing community in Chicago.

Join three prolific young artists/activists for an afternoon of powerful spoken word performance, followed by an open discussion about the arts as stepping-stones to tackling broader issues related to social justice!

For more information, please contact Geoffrey Banks at gb@prairie.org.