About this Event
Please join us for an in-person event celebrating the release of A SHIVER IN THE LEAVES by Luther Hughes. For this event, Hughes will be in conversation with CM Burroughs and I.S. Jones.
Please note: Pre-registration for this event is required. By pre-registering, you are verifying that you are fully vaccinated and will wear a mask throughout the entirety of the event.
Nestled against the backdrop of Seattle's flora, fauna, and cityscape, Luther Hughes' debut poetry collection wrestles with the interior and exterior symbiosis of a gay Black man finding refuge from the threat of depression and death through love and desire.
Hughes draws readers into a Seattle that is heavily entrenched in violent anti-Blackness, and full of vulnerable and personal encounters from both the speaker’s past and present. With reverent and careful imagery, Hughes fashions deeply saturated, tender vignettes that reckon relationships between family and friends, lovers, nature, and the police-state.
A Shiver in the Leaves is stunningly cinematic in its layered portrayal of the never-ending dualities of a queer Black poet’s life in the city. Hughes's interrogation of selfhood renders a sharply intimate and viscerally powerful reimagining of what it means to be alive in a body, and what it can mean to live.
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Luther Hughes is the author of the debut poetry collection, A Shiver in the Leaves (BOA Editions, 2022), and the chapbook Touched (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2018), recommended by the American Library Association. He is the founder of Shade Literary Arts, a literary organization for queer writers of color, and co-hosts The Poet Salon podcast. Recipient of the Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship and 92Y Discovery Poetry Prize, his writing has been published in American Poetry Review, Paris Review, The Seattle Times, Orion, and more. He was born and raised in Seattle, where he currently lives.
CM Burroughs is Associate Professor of Poetry at Columbia College Chicago. She is the author of The Vital System (Tupelo Press, 2012) and Master Suffering (Tupelo Press, 2021) which was longlisted for the National Book Award. Burroughs has been awarded fellowships and grants from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Djerassi Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Cave Canem Foundation. She has received commissions from the Studio Museum of Harlem and the Warhol Museum to create poetry in response to art installations. Burroughs’ poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including Poetry magazine, Callaloo, jubilat, Ploughshares, VOLT, Best American Experimental Writing Anthology, and The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks.
I.S. Jones is an American / Nigerian poet and essayist. She is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole and holds fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, and Brooklyn Poets. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Guernica, Washington Square Review, LA Review of Books, The Rumpus and elsewhere. For the last three years, she served the Director of the Watershed Reading Series with Art + Literature Laboratory. She is currently an instructor with Brooklyn Poets. Her chapbook Spells of My Name (2021) is out with Newfound.
Image Description: A light brown colored banner with a faint pattern of open books. The banner features a small cover image for A SHIVER IN THE LEAVES centered between three photographs of the author, Luther Hughes, and conversation partners CM Burroughs and I.S. Jones. The text reads: "Women & Children First presents a poetry reading for Luther Hughes in conversation with CM Burroughs and I.S. Jones, Friday, October 21 at 10:45am. Masks and proof of vaccination are required."
Email [email protected] with questions or to request accommodations.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Women & Children First, 5233 North Clark Street, Chicago, United States
USD 0.00