RESPECT THE MIC! Poetry with Hanif Abdurraqib, Peter Kahn, Steven Waddell!

2424 East Main Street,Columbus OH 43209

19 February, 2022

Description

RESPECT THE MIC: Celebrating 20 Years of Poetry from a Chicagoland High School! Hanif Abdurraqib and Peter Kahn! Moderated by Steven Waddell Join Hanif Abdurraqib and Peter Kahn, editors of RESPECT THE MIC, an expansive, moving anthology representing 20 years of poetry from students and alumni of Chicago's Oak Park River Forest High School Spoken Word Club. The evening will be moderated by educator Steven Waddell, a former member of the Spoken Word Club. Registration for this free, in-store event is required. Seating is limited. Attendees can purchase the book when registering or at the event. Registration closes at 6:00 pm on the day of the event. To ensure safety for all, proof of full vaccination or a recent negative Covid-19 test is required to attend. Masks are mandated by the City of Bexley, even for those unvaccinated. "Poets I know sometimes joke that the poetry club at Oak Park River Forest High School is the best MFA program in the Chicagoland area. Like all great jokes, this one is dead serious." -Eve L. Ewing, award-winning poet, playwright, scholar, and sociologist For Chicago's Oak Park and River Forest High School's Spoken Word Club, there is one phrase that reigns supreme: Respect the Mic. It's been the club's call to arms since its inception in 1999. As its founder Peter Kahn says, "It's a call of pride and history and tradition and hope." This vivid new collection of poetry and prose -- curated by award-winning and bestselling poets Hanif Abdurraqib, Franny Choi, Peter Kahn, and Dan "Sully" Sullivan -- illuminates just that, uplifting the incredible legacy this community has cultivated. Among the dozens of current students and alumni, Respect the Mic features work by NBA champion Iman Shumpert, National Youth Poet Laureates Kara Jackson and Natalie Richardson, comedian Langston Kerman, and more. In its pages, you hear the sprawling echoes of students, siblings, lovers, new parents, athletes, entertainers, scientists, and more—all sharing a deep appreciation for the power of storytelling. A celebration of the past, a balm for the present, and a blueprint for the future, Respect the Mic offers a tender, intimate portrait of American life, and conveys how in a world increasingly defined by separation, poetry has the capacity to bind us together. Hanif Abdurraqib is a nationally acclaimed poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His most recent book of essays, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance, was a finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction and named one of the ten best books of the year by Publishers Weekly. He is the author of two poetry collections, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, and A Fortune for Your Disaster, winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was named a book of the year by NPR, Esquire, BuzzFeed, O: The Oprah Magazine, Pitchfork, and Chicago Tribune, among others. Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest was a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award and Kirkus Prize finalist and was longlisted for the National Book Award. In 2021, he was named a MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellow. A former Chicago social worker, Peter Kahn has been an English teacher since 1994 and a Spoken Word Educator since 2003 at Oak Park/River Forest High School. His students can be seen in Louder Than a Bomb and America to Me. A founding member of the London poetry collective Malika's Kitchen, he co-founded the London Teenage Poetry Slam and, as a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths-University of London, created the Spoken Word Education Training Programme. He earned his MA in English Education from The Ohio State University, student taught at Columbus East High School and taught for the Young Scholars Program. Peter was a featured speaker at the National Council of Teachers of English's annual convention and runner-up in the NCTE and Penguin Random House Maya Angelou Teacher Award for Poetry. Along with Patricia Smith and Ravi Shankar, he edited The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, reviewed in the New York Times by Claudia Rankine. Peter's 2020 poetry collection, Little Kings, has poems featured in the London Guardian and The Forward Book of Poetry. Steven Byron Waddell is a writer and educator who currently serves at the Director of Education for the Academy for Urban Scholars High School in Columbus. He is originally from Chicago, where he found his passion for sports and writing and education. Steve was a member of the Spoken Word Club at Oak Park and River Forest High School. Gramercy Books is a locally-owned, independently-minded neighborhood bookstore located in the heart of Bexley, Ohio (just outside of downtown Columbus) that opened in December of 2016. Inspiration and discovery through books is cultivated in a variety of events throughout the year that include author visits and festivals, book signings, poetry readings, a monthly book club, and songwriter performances. Gramercy Books shares space with Kittie’s bakery café.