Have you been wondering how to support poets during the pandemic? Missing community engagement and your kindred literary spaces? Social Distancing doesn’t have to mean social isolation! The Quarantine Reading Series is a virtual poetry experience running May 28th and 29th where emerging and established poets share their work and fellowship, and where your ticket purchase or donation supports LGBTQ and BIPOC writers during the global crisis.
This month, twenty phenomenal poets including Julian Randall, Alison Rollins, Benjamin Garcia, Kai Davis, and more are reading alongside our two featured poets: National Book Award winner Justin Phillip Reed and acclaimed poet and scholar Phillip B. Williams.
Join us May 28th and 29th at 7:30pm on Zoom. Tickets to the Quarantine Reading Series are sliding scale beginning at 5.00 USD. Suggested donation is 15.00 USD.
About the Series
COVID19 has touched our lives in varying degrees, and for now, we’ve been advised to stay at home. In light of all city, state, and country-wide shutdowns, poets from around the world (particularly BIPOC & LGBTQ poets) have been struggling financially, navigating the loss of income from canceled gigs, low audience turnout, and scrapped book tours. Like we’ve done so many times before, we turn now to poetry and community as our beacon and hope that you’ll join us in celebrating tenacity in the face of adversity.
Join TQRS for two nights of poetry, laughs, love, and encouragement. Hear from award-winning poets, thrilling poets, poets who push us into new understandings of the written and spoken word.
Let’s break out the wine and cheese, or the seltzer and gummy bears. Wherever you are in the midst of the mayhem, join us. Let’s laugh, cuss, and triumph! Poetry is a balm and in wild times like these, we’re hopeful that poems are just as, if not more relevant to the ways we thrive and survive.
The Who:
Thursday’s line-up:
Feature: Phillip B. Williams
- Crystal Valentine
- Cyree Jarelle Johnson
- Noor Ibn Najam
- Marshall Gillson
- Malcolm Tariq
- Julian Randall
- Jayy Dodd
- Malcolm Tariq
- Camonghne Felix
Friday’s line-up:
Feature: Justin Phillip Reed
- Catherine Chen
- Sasha Banks
- Asia Bryant
- Claudia Wilson
- Jabari Jawan Allen
- Kai Davis
- Benjamin Garcia
- Ariana Brown
- Alison Rollins
All proceeds go to readers.
Buy tickets here.
Please Note: You will receive a Zoom link on the date of the event once you’ve RSVP’ed.
Accessibility: A text copy of all poems performed at the readings will be made available for attendees during the event. For other accessibility questions, please contact curator Aurielle Marie at book@auriellemarie.com .
