Live Poetry: Sojourner Ahebee, Michelle Myers & Karol Wasylyshyn

Wednesday, September 30th @ 7pm

Fergies Pub: 1412 Sansom St. Philadelphia

Sojourner Ahebee writes stories about African diaspora identities and the eternal question of home and belonging. Her poems have been published in The Atlantic, The Academy of American Poets, Muzzle Magazine, For Harriet, Winter Tangerine Review, Apiary Magazine, and elsewhere. In 2013, she served as a National Student Poet, the nation’s highest honor for young poets presenting original work. Sojourner was invited to the White House by former First Lady Michelle Obama to receive her award.

Philadelphia Poet Laureate Yolanda Wisher wrote, “Reporting from the Belly of the Night is a gospel of self-love full of gorgeous pullulating poems. Ahebee wrenches the sting and the sweetness from black womanhood. She evokes historical, cultural, and familial namesakes, sings up the names of daughters and aunties and mamas, makes mountains of them. This is a young woman’s poetry with an elder’s heart, unflinchingly traversing the oceans between slavery and social media. These are poems we long for and need but don’t always see coming.”

Michelle Myers is an award-winning poet, author, and educator whose work centers storytelling, cultural memory, and voice. A founding member of the Asian American spoken word poetry group Yellow Rage, she was among the first Asian American women featured on HBO’s Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry. Her work appears in numerous anthologies and outlets, including USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Smithsonian Channel. Michelle is also an award-winning educator and the faculty coordinator and co-creator of the Emmy-nominated series Drop the Mic. She hosts the podcast Mind Your Margins, produced by her daughter, Myong.

She received a 2024 Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts for her middle-grade novel Talk Me a Story about Moon Rabbit. Michelle was commissioned by the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles to write a poem for its exhibition (Be) Spoken.

Karol Wasylyshyn is widely published in the field of consulting psychology and has published volumes of poetry (Standing on Marbles and Escaping the Corner) focused on business leaders. Her poems appear in Forge, The Write Room, Curium, The Medulla Review, Spillway, Lullwater Review, Visions International, River Sedge, Nimrod Int’l Journal, Milk Money, and The Alembic. In the wake of her husband’s death in 2024, she edited a collection of his grammar columns in a book entitled The Queen’s English and is now working on a series of illustrated grief poems.

Aaren Perry Host – Open Reading Follows