Name: Writers Guild Spoken Word Series
Start: 2025-09-11T18:00:00-04:00
Location: Backspace Gallery, 112 West 6th Street, Bloomington IN

OPEN MIC following the features
BEER & WINE available for purchase
THURSDAY, SEP 11
6pm EST
featuring poets Jason Baldinger and John Dorsey
music by Rikki Jean
open mic to follow
Sponsored in part by the Bloomington Arts Commission and the Bloomington Urban Enterprise Association
JASON BALDINGER is a poet and photographer from Pittsburgh, PA. He is the co-editor of Trailer Park Quarterly and co-runs The Odd-Month Reading Series. He’s penned twenty books of poetry the newest of which include American Aorta (OAC Books) and Waiting on Hummingbirds, with Kansas poet James Benger (their fourth together). His first book of photography, Lazarus (OAC Books), was released in 2023. His photography can also be found in the ekphrastic collaboration Hope is a Prison, with poet Rebecca Schumejda (OAC Books), and The Night Window (Kung Fu Treachery). His poems and photos have appeared across a wide variety of online sites and print journals. You can hear him read from various books on Bandcamp and on LPs by The Gotobeds and Theremonster.
JOHN DORSEY is the author of over ninety collections of poetry. Former Poet Laureate of Belle, Missouri, he is the recipient of the 2019 Terry Award, given at Poetry Rendezvous. He is also a founder and co-editor of the Gasconade Review, with Jason Ryberg, and River Dog Press, with Victor Clevenger. Dorsey is known for his prolific writing career as a poet and as a major influence on small press, grassroots poetry movements in the U.S. Since 1992, his poems have been published in more than 2,000 literary magazines and anthologies.
RIKKI JEAN learned the harsh realities of life at a young age, losing her father at age five. Growing up in Southern Mississippi, life was tough for her, two sisters, and widowed mother. Every step of the way seemed to get harder as she cascaded through life. Growing confidence with every failure, Rikki managed to put together an album of true grit and the American spirit.