Radical Poetry Reading with Kyle Carrero Lopez

Poet and author of the upcoming chapbook MUSCLE MEMORY (winner of the 2020 [PANK] Books Contest), Kyle Carrero Lopez was born to Cuban parents in northern New Jersey. He co-founded LEGACY, a Brooklyn-based production collective by and for Black queer artists. Kyle’s recent poems are published in TriQuarterly, The Atlantic, Poetry, The Nation, and elsewhere.

Palestinian American poet Jessica Abughattas is the author of the debut poetry collection Strip, winner the 2020 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize selected by Fady Joudah and Hayan Charara. A Kundiman fellow, Abughattas’ poems have appeared in The Rumpus, The Adroit Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, Lit Hub, Waxwing, BOAAT, and other places. She lives in Los Angeles.

Trans poet, artist, and curator, Anaïs Duplan is the author of a book of essays Blackspace: On the Poetics of an Afrofuture (Black Ocean, 2020), a full-length poetry collection, Take This Stallion (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016), and a chapbook, Mount Carmel and the Blood of Parnassus (Monster House Press, 2017). He was a 2017–2019 joint Public Programs fellow at the Museum of Modern Art and the Studio Museum in Harlem. In 2016, he founded the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, an artist residency program for artists of color, based at Iowa City’s artist-run organization Public Space One.

Poet, essayist, and editor Omotara James is the author of the poetry collection Song of My Softening, forthcoming from Alice James Books, April 2022. She has been awarded fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts, Lambda Literary and the Cave Canem Foundation. A recipient of the 92Y/Discovery Poetry Prize, James is a visual artist and teacher of poetry in New York City. She believes that radical thought without radical action is dead.

Queer American Nigerian poet and music journalist, I.S. Jones is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole and holds fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, and Brooklyn Poets. I.S. hosts a month-long workshop every April called The Singing Bullet. She is an editor at 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Guernica, Washington Square Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hobart Pulp, The Rumpus, The Offing, Shade Literary Arts, and elsewhere. Her chapbook Spells Of My Name is forthcoming with Newfound in 2021.

Queer Palestinian-American performance artist, Fargo Tbakhi’s writing can be found in Strange Horizons, Apex Magazine, The Shallow Ends, Mizna, Peach Mag, and elsewhere. His performance work has been programmed at OUTsider Fest, INTER-SECTION Solo Fest, the National Queer Arts Festival, and has received support from the Arizona Commission on the Arts.