Unfortunately, due to the overwhelming response for this event, pre-registration has now closed.
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Witness the power of poetry as Kevin Coval, Haki Madhubuti and Aaron Samuels come together for an evening of performance and conversation. Join us for provocative performances by the three artists followed by a conversation that will explore issues of race and identity in hip hop and poetry. An Open Mic set with Young Chicago Authors will kick off the evening. MC’d by Sage Morgan-Hubbard. Reception to follow.
Free and open to the public. Registration is required, but is now sold out. For more information, call 312.422.5580.
More about our featured poets:
KEVIN COVAL is the author of ALA “Book of the Year” finalist Slingshots: A Hip-Hop Poetica and Everyday People. He is co-founder and Artistic Director of Louder Than a Bomb: The Chicago Teen Poetry Festival, subject of an award-winning documentary of the same name, airing on the OWN network in Fall 2011. A regular contributor to Chicago Public Radio, and a four-time HBO Def Poet, Coval teaches at the School of the Art Institute and in high schools around Chicago. His latest collection L-vis Lives from Haymarket Books is now available and is accompanied by a national tour of the L-vis Lives one-man show.
HAKI MADHUBUTI is a leading poet and one of the architects of the Black Arts Movement. A publisher, editor and educator, he has been a pivotal figure in the development of a strong Black literary tradition. He has published more than 28 books (some under his former name, Don L. Lee) and is one of the world’s best-selling authors of poetry and non-fiction. He is an award-winning poet and recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, the American Book Award, an Illinois Arts Council Award, the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award and others.
AARON SAMUELS is an award winning poet, educator, community organizer, and published author. Aaron has performed his work for the last six years, consistently ranking among the top poets in the youth, collegiate, and national competitions. Aaron’s upcoming book, Mutually Assured Destruction, will be released this fall, and some of his poetry was recently published in Muzzle, a Chicago Literary magazine. Aaron’s aspirations include making the world a better place.
More about our MC:
SAGE MORGAN-HUBBARD is an independent teaching artist, activist, poet, performer and consultant. She is originally from Washington, D.C. where she was raised in the Hip Hop Theater festival and youth poetry as one of the founding members of Spoken Resistance and Sol y Soul. Sage has a MA+ from Northwestern and a BA from Brown University in “Performance Studies: Social Conscious Art of the Everyday.” She is the founder of WORD! spoken word poets and activists and is currently working with Young Chicago Author’s Youth Poetry Slam “Louder Than a Bomb”and coordinating the Midwest/Chicago Hip Hop “Remixing the Art of Social Change” Teach-In with Words, Beats & Life.
If you need a sign interpreter or require other arrangements to fully participate, please call 312.422.5580. For parking locations near the facility, please visit ChicagoParkingMap.com.