Because of This: Midwest Poetics

Saturday, September 11, 2021 at 6:00-8:00 PM

Because of This performances are an opportunity for artists to make space, celebrate, and connect with the many voices that make the music and performance scenes that thrive in the Midwest. We want to give the mic to Black, Indigenous vocalists, poets, musicians and performers of color to celebrate their craft.

For Saturday’s Midwest Poetics, please join us in celebrating the work of poets: 

Felicia Webster 

River Mckenzie 

Sheri Purpose Hall

RSVP required

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Tongo Eisen-Martin and Sonia Sanchez in Conversation | The Poetry Magazine Podcast 

Sonia Sanchez: “…And then she [Ms. Hudson] sent me to Mr. M who owned this bookstore full of Black books and a brotha, by the name, brotha Richard E out of the Caribbean and he also gave me a bag of books, whateva. And my education began…So yeah I didn’t know a bloody thing about what it was being Black because your parents didn’t tell you, because they were ashamed I guess about our Blackness or they were scared to tell you, they didn’t know what would happen when they told you. And there I was in the Schaumburg reading, reading…And Ms. Hudson, Jean Hudson, had given me the world from a Black point of view, had given me Dubois whom I would meet years later and would surely — grab me by the hand, and hug me, and said, “thank you sister Sonia for being on this earth and your writing. And I cried, outloud, because of it.”

“I hope that wasn’t too long.”

Tonga Eisen-Martin: “Nah, it was um, it was cosmic”