About this Event
, , and are teaming up for an AWP reading in partnership with Loyola High School's Words Matter.
Join us on Thursday evening at Angels Rock Bar to hear poems by Erin Belieu, Victoria Chang, Erica Dawson, James Allen Hall, Oliver de la Paz, and Felicia Zamora.
Be sure to stick around for dancing (courtesy of Loyola's own DJ Dearly Beloved) and drinks!
ABOUT OUR READERS:
Erin Belieu’s poetry collection, Come-Hither Honeycomb, was published in February 2021. Belieu's other poetry collections are Infanta, winner of the National Poetry Series, and chosen one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, National Book Critics Circle, and Library Journal; One Above & One Below, winner of the Midland Author’s and Ohioana Poetry Prizes; Black Box, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Slant Six, which received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and was named by the New York Times’s book critic’s one of their 10 Favorite Books of 2014. All of Belieu’s poetry collections are published by Copper Canyon Press.
Victoria Chang’s most recent book of poems is With My Back to the World, published in 2024 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the U.S. and Corsair/Little Brown in the U.K. It received the Forward Prize in Poetry for Best Collection. A few of her other books include The Trees Witness Everything, OBIT, and Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief. She has written several children’s books as well. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Chowdhury International Prize in Literature, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She is the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Tech and Director of Poetry@Tech.
Erica Dawson is the author of three books of poetry: When Rap Spoke Straight to God (Tin House, 2018), winner of the 2018 Florida Book Awards Gold Medal for Poetry; The Small Blades Hurt (Measure Press, 2014), winner of the 2016 Poets’ Prize; and, Big-Eyed Afraid (Waywiser Press, 2007), winner of the 2006 Anthony Hecht Prize. Her poems have appeared in Blackbird, Revel, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, and other journals. Her poems have appeared in several anthologies, including Best American Poetry 2008, 2012, and 2015, Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poets Now, and American Society: What Poets See. Her prose has appeared in The Rumpus. She has been featured on PBS Newshour, and in The New York Times Magazine, and O, The Oprah Magazine. Erica holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University, an MFA from Ohio State University, and a PhD from University of Cincinnati. She’s taught workshops and seminars at the Tin House Workshop, the Florida Literary Arts Coalition’s Other Words Conference, St. Leo University’s Sandhill Writers Retreat, and the DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon. She was an associate professor at the University of Tampa. She lives in the Baltimore-DC area with her Shih-Tzu, Stella, whom she named after Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella, not Tennessee Williams’ Stella or Stella Artois, though Erica really likes Tennessee Williams and Stella Artois. You can find her on Instagram at @ericadawsonpoet.
James Allen Hall (he/they) is a nonbinary, queer author of two books of poems and a book of lyric essays. Their most recent book, Romantic Comedy, won the 2020 Levis Prize selected by Diane Seuss and was published by Four Way Books in 2023. Their first book of poems is Now You're the Enemy (U of Arkansas Press, 2008). They are also the author of a book of lyric personal essays: I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well, selected by Chris Kraus for the Essay Collection Award and published by Cleveland State University Poetry Center Press (2017). They’ve won awards from the Lambda Literary Foundation, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Texas Institute of Letters, the Fellowship of Southern Writers, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment of the Arts (in 2025 and 2011, both in poetry). In 2024, James was the Paul Otremba Returning Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. Their poems and essays have appeared widely, including in two editions of Best American Poetry. They direct the Rose O'Neill Literary House at Washington College in Chestertown, MD. James co-hosts, with poet extraordinaire Aaron Smith, Breaking Form: A Podcast of Poetry and Culture. Find it online at https://breakingformpod.buzzsprout.com, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Oliver de la Paz is the author and editor of seven books: Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby, Requiem for the Orchard, Post Subject: A Fable, and The Boy in the Labyrinth, a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry. His newest work, The Diaspora Sonnets, published by Liveright Press in 2023, was long listed for the National Book Award and is the winner of the 2023 New England Book Award. With Stacey Lynn Brown he co-edited A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry. Oliver serves on the board for Poetry Daily and on the board for the Worcester County Poetry Association.
Felicia Zamora is a poet, educator, and editor currently living in OH. She is the author of eight books of poetry including, Murmuration Archives, Akrilica Series with Noemi Press forthcoming in 2026, Interstitial Archaeology selected as an Editor’s Pick for The Wisconsin Poetry Series (forthcoming in April 2025 from University of Wisconsin Press), Quotient (Tinderbox Editions 2022), I Always Carry My Bones, winner of the 2020 Iowa Poetry Prize (University of Iowa Press 2021) and winner of the 2022 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry, Body of Render, winner of the 2018 Benjamin Saltman Award (Red Hen Press 2020), Instrument of Gaps (Slope Editions 2018), & in Open, Marvel (Parlor Press 2018), and Of Form & Gather, winner of the 2016 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize (University of Notre Dame Press 2017).
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Angels Rock Bar Baltimore, 10 Market Place, Baltimore, United States
USD 0.00
