Poetry at the Green

The Chicago Poetry Center and The Green at 320 S. Canal are proud to reintroduce this free, weekly reading and open mic series co-curated by CPC’s Poets in Residence Tarnynon Onumonu and Timothy David Rey.

Join us on certain Monday nights June through August at 6-7 pm. in this beautiful setting to hear outstanding featured poets perform their work in this partnership between Chicago Poetry Center and The Green at 320 S. Canal. After every poetry performance, there will be an open mic for any individual that would like to share poetry of their own!

ABOUT JUNE’S FEATURED PERFORMERS:

June 3: Ola Faleti: Ola Faleti is a writer and arts educator raised & based in Chicago. Her work has appeared in TriQuarterly, The Chicago Reader, Interim, Jet Fuel Review, and elsewhere. The curriculum for Ola’s workshop with 826CHI, “Poets in Revolt!” was distributed nationally and birthed an anthology of youth writing. She’s currently a teaching artist with the Chicago Poetry Center. Her favorite number is nine, and she believes there’s no such thing as too many flowers.

June 10: Michelle Alexander: Michelle Alexander is an American-Trinidadian poet, creative nonfiction writer, and a New York University Gallatin School of Individualized Study graduate. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College of Chicago. Her work has appeared in Salt Hill. She is a poet in residence with the Chicago Poetry Center.

June 17: Mayda Del Valle: Mayda del Valle was born and raised on the Southside of Chicago. She is the author of The University of Hip Hop and a winner of the 2016 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize from Northwestern University Press. Her full-length collection, A South Side Girl’s Guide to Love and Sex, was published on Tia Chucha press. She appeared on six episodes of the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, and was a contributing writer and original cast member of the Tony Award winning Def Poetry Jam on Broadway.

June 24: Maya Odim: Maya Odim is a poet who explores how rhythms, patterns and arrangements of words in text and in gesture/body language communicate and act in storytelling; Maya engages in this through writing and a developing choreographic praxis (because body language is phrasing too.) Stories are held by many different kinds of objects: by bodies, by walls, by pages in a book, and Maya is interested in ways both the body and the external world holds like this. Words are objects that can be lived with, and poems can fill up a room and a mind/ideas the furniture in both. As a poet and dancer, Maya works to mount performances in community with others and sometimes in an effort to build with others. Maya holds a BA in American Studies (Wesleyan University) and an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Maya lives and works in Chicago collaborating with artists at home and abroad often. Right now, Maya’s work explores two specific ideas: One, the way cultural imagination (ideology) impacts how one learns to approach performance and the performer(s) and two, the way words/text can be part of the design of a physical space.

ABOUT THE CO-CURATORS:

Tarnynon (Ty-yuh-nuh) Onumonu is an artist and licensed Paraprofessional born and raised in the Jeffery Manor neighborhood on the southeast side of Chicago and is extremely proud of and humbled by her SouthSide citizenship and West African lineage. In 2017, she took second place in the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards and represented Chicago on the Lethal Poetry Team at the 2018 National Poetry Slam. She has been a Poet in Residence at the Chicago Poetry Center since January of 2019 and has been featured in Newcity Magazine and South Side Weekly.

Timothy David Rey is a writer/performer who works in poetry, plays, and monologue (both fictional and autobiographical). He teaches creative writing and performance throughout the city of Chicago and its suburbs. He is a 2015 Semi-Finalist for the Guild Literary Complex’s Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Award, and one of the winners of Project Exploration (The Poetry Center of Chicago 2004). He is the co-founder of the LBGT Solo Performance Showcase, Solo Homo (2002-2011). Timothy’s plays and performance pieces have been seen and heard at venues throughout Chicago as well as out of state and in Panama.

ABOUT THE LOCATION:

The Green at 320 is a public park located in the West Loop and will be host to many family-friendly activities and events this summer!

The Green at 320 is located behind the building at 320 S. Canal, 1 block west of the river. The main staired entrance to the park is on the corner of Clinton and Van Buren with an ADA-accessible ramp off of Clinton. The park is located 1 block north of the Clinton Blue Line Stop. Please find more detailed transit and location information at https://320southcanal.com/.