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In the Company of Spirits & Dreams: A Night of Poetry with Sheila Black & Friends

October 13, 2022 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm CDT

Free

A Night of Poetry with Sheila Black, Viktoria Valenzuela & Carmen Calatayud, followed by a Community Open Mic

Join us for a night of poetry and literary celebration as we partner with our friends at Poetic Republic Cafe to create an inviting space for the writing community to share words, wine, and wisdom, with a little latte or espresso on the side. Get inspired by the mesmerizing worlds of three poets, each with their own ferocity of voice. The evening kicks off with Sheila Black reading from her latest image-rich, stunning poetry collection, Radium Dream (2022), which “navigates the boundary between beauty and what is broken.” She’ll be joined by special guests Viktoria Valenzuela and Carmen Calatayud, who will share the gifts of their recent works.

 A community open mic follows the featured reading. Bring your poems, stories, and thoughts to share (3-minute limit for each reader). In-person signup starts at 5:45pm.


Sheila Black’s most recent collection is Radium Dream newly released from Salmon Poetry Ireland. Poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review Online, Ploughshares, and The Nation (forthcoming). The New York Times, and elsewhere. She is a co-editor of Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability (Cinco Puntos Press, 2011), named a Notable Book for Adults for 2012 by the American Library Association. She is a co-founder and Executive Director of Zoeglossia, a non-profit building community for poets with disabilities. 

Carmen Calatayud is the daughter of immigrants. Her book In the Company of Spirits (Press 53) was a runner-up for the Academy of American Poets Walt Whitman Award and an Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize finalist. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared in print and online in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Cutthroat, The Manifest-Station, Poet Lore, Virginia Quarterly Review, Verse Daily and numerous anthologies. She is a DC area native living in San Antonio, Texas.

Viktoria Valenzuela is the executive director and associate editor of Voices de la Luna magazine. She is also an inaugural Zoeglossia Fellow, a Macondista, and the organizer of 100 Thousand Poets for Change: San Antonio. Her work is published in books and collections such as Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century, Wordgathering, The Zoeglossia Anthology: We Are Not Your Metaphor, Raising Mothers, Poetry Bay Online Journal, and Mutha Magazine. Valenzuela’s scholarship and creative writing address social justice, disability, and where these intersect with m(other)hood and Chicana feminism. 

Details

Date:
October 13, 2022
Time:
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm CDT
Cost:
Free
Event Category:

Venue

Poetic Republic Coffee Co.
2330 S. Presa St
San Antonio, Texas United States
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Organizer

Mandy Lynn Lara
Email
mllara@geminiink.org