racial injustice

Cornelius Eady reads poems from Victims of the Latest Dance Craze (1986) and The Gathering of My Name (1991), many of which focus on dancing, jazz musicians, and the pervasive racial injustice experienced by Black Americans.

Nikky Finney reads poems from her collections The World Is Round (2003) and Lovechild's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry (forthcoming in 2020). Finney also reads her new work titled "Black Boy with Cow: A Still Life" commissioned for the Poetry Center's Art for Justice series. Members of the American Friends Service Committee, Tucson give an introductory presentation.

As part of the Institute for Inquiry and Poetics, Sin À Tes Souhaits (Frank Johnson), Vanessa Angélica Villarreal, and Raquel Salas Rivera read and discuss poems from their unpublished manuscripts Literal Dope (À Tes Souhaits), Racial Calculus (Villarreal), and Oso Blanco (Salas Rivera). Diana Marie Delgado leads a conversation throughout the event.

Jericho Brown reads from across his published body of work: Please (2008), The New Testament (2014), and The Tradition (2019), his Pulitzer Prize-winning collection. He reads poems that touch on childhood and family, southern Black culture, racial injustice, and violence— from the home to the nation. He answers audience questions on musicality, his approach to writing and teaching poetry, and his invented form, the duplex.