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https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82161270135?pwd=aDVLWlcxWmFsMTNwNjR1L3lEZXV1QT09

Sandra Turner-Barnes is an author, poet, and jazz lover and vocalist. Her first book of poetry Always A Lady has sold over 7,000 copies. In 1996, Sandra won the EBONY MAGAZINE Literary Competition for Short Fiction, and in 1997, Sandra re-created the concept of “Jazz-Oetry” and began singing Jazz. In 2000, Sandra’s live jazz vocals’ video performance, with pianist Barry Sames, was selected for National & International airing on BET’s syndicated show “Jazz Discoveries.”

Theodore A. Harris is a collagist, poet, and founder and director of The Institute for Advanced Study in Black Aesthetics. He has co-authored books with Amiri Baraka, such as Our Flesh of Flames, Malcolm X as Ideology, and TRIPTYCH: Text by Amiri Baraka and Jack Hirschman, as well as i ran from it and was still in it with Fred Moten. “Posed against an eerily iridescent orange sky,” as quoted from Our Flesh Of Flames, Harris’ collaged landscapes are filled with urban dystopia. Upside down capitols and distorted banknotes pose the reality of a society fettered by the cash nexus. Controversial critic and poet Amiri Baraka provides lyrical assault through his captions with his trademark humor and biting social commentary.

Lamont B. Steptoe is an award-winning poet, photographer, founder of Whirlwind Press, and Vietnam veteran, born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has published sixteen collections of poems and is the winner of an American Book Award, a Pew Fellow in the Arts, and two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts awards, as well as induction into the International Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent by the Gwendolyn Brooks Center in Chicago. Steptoe’s work appears in over one hundred anthologies, the most recent being Waging Peace in Vietnam. His most recent titles are Crowns & Halos, Oracular Rumblings & Stilt Walking, Meditations in Congo Square, and Beyond the White Stone Lions.

M. Nzadi Keita is a native Philadelphian. Her most recent collection, Brief Evidence of Heaven, sheds light on Anna Murray Douglass, Frederick Douglass’ first wife. Poet Lore journal, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, and other publications have featured her work. Keita received a 2017 Pew Fellowship for Poetry. She is an associate professor of English, Creative Writing, and African-American/Africana Studies at Ursinus College.

Kirwyn Sutherland is a Clinical Research Professional and poet who makes poems centering the black experience in America. He is a Watering Hole fellow and has attended workshops/residencies at Cave Canem, Winter Tangerine, Poets House, Philadelphia Sculpture Gym, and Pearlstein Art Gallery at Drexel University. Kirwyn was a member of the 2015 Philadelphia Pigeon Slam and the 2016 Philadelphia Fuze Poetry Slam Team. Kirwyn’s work has been published in American Poetry Review, Blueshift Journal, APIARY Magazine, FOLDER, The Wanderer, and elsewhere. He has served as Editor of Lists/Book Reviewer for WusGood magazine and poetry editor for APIARY Magazine and teaches Spoken Word/Poetry Performance at the University of the Arts.

Lamont B. Steptoe, Host