Sidetrack Bookshop + Give Thanks Bakery Host Poet Isabella Mansfield

317 South Main Street,Royal Oak MI 48067

22 April, 2023

Description

Michigan poet Isabella J. Mansfield will kick off our first open mic poetry night at Give Thanks Bakery by reading from her latest chapbook, lemon. Then, we will open the mic to those in the audience who wish to share poetry - their own or a favorite from another writer. Give Thanks Bakery will be selling coffee, tea, baked goods, and pastry, and Sidetrack Bookshop will have poetry for sale. lemon is a chapbook of poems centering around the body - from the standpoint of medical trauma, physical health/illness, mental health/illness, disability/ableism, as well as the way complex way the mental and physical issues often knit themselves together. My hope with this collection is to bring awareness to some of the challenges I face as a woman with a disability, the ache of having more health issues pile up with each passing year, and to finally share my story, facing my own disability from aged twelve, through poetry. Isabella J Mansfield (she/her) writes about anxiety, intimacy, and body image both generally and as a woman with a disability. She has a love for stage poetry, and has taken her work around the country and across the pond, including performances at the Oberon Theater, Cambridge, MA, and Nambucca London. A two-time Pushcart nominee, and a Write Bloody McCarthy Prize Honorable Mention, Isabella is always looking for ways to bring a little humor into her deeply personal poems, and is almost never sorry to make you cry. Instagram and Facebook @isabellajmansfield