About this Event
Featuring readings from:
Leslie McIntosh
Erica Hunt
Joel Dias-Porter
Khadijah Queen
Lauren Whitehead
Ronaldo V. Wilson
Hosted by Jayson P. Smith
Photography by Anisa Rahim
Selected by Terrance Hayes as winner of the 2025 Changes Book Prize, Leslie McIntosh’s brilliant debut within-group variance pushes beyond the limitations of identity politics in pursuit of a “me that is me everywhere.” Through archival fabulation, data theory, diagrams, redactions, and epistles, McIntosh weaves a kaleidoscopic lyric that probes the terrains of Black identity and history, invoking a multidisciplinary network of muses along the way, including Bayard Rustin, Phillis Wheatley Peters, and Charles Gaines. With tenderness and rigor, these poems insist on the multiplicity of the self and the possibilities of language to hold it.
The poet Jay Wright says, “Every individual is as complex as my poetry. I will honor that gift.” Leslie McIntosh crafts literary art embracing this edict. At vertiginous angles of sensorial, intellectual, and spiritual intersection, Leslie’s work engages the far-reaches of human consciousness, identity, and their respective futures. Leslie has presented these inquiries across the country as a featured guest at universities, literary festivals, national poetry slams, and other convenings since 2005, but currently calls home a rowhouse on the stolen land of the Munsee Lenape, presently known as Jersey City, NJ, USA.
“This is a transformative body of work—dynamic, tender, and relentless in its explorations of mode, meaning, and music. The variations of wonder are infused with inner and outer inquiry; magical thinking and feeling. I will return to within-group variance again and again to absorb and celebrate its brilliance.”
–From the foreword by Terrance Hayes
Event venue & nearby stays
Poets House, 10 River Terrace, New York, United States
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