Capturing Fire and A Gathering of the Tribes join forces to present, Gathering Fire QL,(Queer Literature/Liberation) a special live reading during Pride season. Six featured authors will share their original work followed by an hour-long open mic.
Open mic sign up will begin promptly at 6pm, and last be available for 30 minutes. We ask open readers to keep their work to three minutes or less.
This event will be live as well as virtual, held at The Bowery Poetry Club, and live-streamed on Tribes social media. We invite vaccinated audience members to attend in-person, following NYC social-distancing COVID safety protocols, and all others to attend online.
Gathering Fire will be a 90-minute event celebrating the history of queer liberation, and literature, featuring contemporary queer voices, curated by Regie Cabico (Master of Ceremonies) and Chavisa Woods. The space has been generously provided by The Bowery Poetry Club.
We look forward to seeing you there!
There is a $10 suggested donation.
FEATURED AUTHORS:
Jeanne Thornton is the author of the novels Summer Fun and The Dream of Doctor Bantam and the collection The Black Emerald. She’s the copublisher of Instar Books and the co-ditor, with Tara Madison Avery, of We’re Still Here: An All-Trans Comics Anthology. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in n+1, WIRED, Electric Literature, the Evergreen Review, and other places. More information is available at www.jeannethornton.com.
Urayoán Noel is the author of eight books of poetry, including Buzzing Hemisphere/Rumor Hemisférico (2015) and the forthcoming Transversal, both from the University of Arizona Press. He has also published the prize-winning study In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam (University of Iowa Press, 2014), and he has been a finalist for the National Translation Award and the Best Translated Book Award for his translations of Latin American poetry. Originally from Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, Noel lives in the Bronx and is an associate professor of English and Spanish and Portuguese at New York University.
Pamela Sneed is a New York-based poet, writer, performer and visual artist, author of Funeral Diva, out with City Lights in Fall 2020, as well as Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery, KONG and Other Works, Sweet Dreams and two chaplets, Gift by Belladonna and Black Panther. She has been featured in the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Artforum, Hyperallergic and on the cover of New York Magazine. She is online faculty in SAIC’s low res MFA teaching Human Rights and Writing Art and has also been a Visiting Artist at SAIC in the program for 4 consecutive years. She has performed at the Whitney Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Poetry Project , MCA, The High Line , New Museum and Toronto Biennale. She delivered the closing keynote for Artist, Designers, Citizens Conference/a North American component of the Venice Biennale at SAIC. She appears in Nikki Giovanni’s, “The 100 Best African American Poems.” In 2018, she was nominated for two PushCart Prizes in poetry.
As one half of conceptual art duo Saint Flashlight (with Molly Gross), Drew Pisarra has been finding playful ways to get poetry into public places such as film-themed haiku on a Brooklyn movie marquee and a series of lost-dog style flyers that drove to a phone bank of audioverse. These unconventional installations have been part of the O, Miami Poetry Festival, Free Verse: Charleston Poetry Festival, and Capturing Fire’s International Poetry Summit and Slam. His homoerotic book of sonnets Infinity Standing Up came out in early 2019. His short story collection Publick Spanking was published eons ago by Future Tense. A new book of stories, You're Pretty Gay, has been released by Chaffinch Press in 2021. Additionally, he is a 2019 recipient of a literary grantee of the Cafe Royal Cultural Foundation and a 2021 words grantee of Curious Elixirs: Curious Creators.
Micah the Poet is a writer, poet, author, orator, DJ, and community activist. Though a native of the DC area, he has traveled extensively in his work with the arts, outreach, and community building. Despite being a relatively young man, Micah Powell has been an influential voice all over the country for over 20 years. He has DJ'd events for the Bias family, events for the DC Public Library, various community organizations, DC Pride events, and many parties around DC. He has been featured in the Washington Post, multiple anthologies, and magazines and has a book out called, “Things No One Else Wants to Say” He has performed with internationally known slam poets and musicians as well as mentored young poets and artists, worked with politicians, religious and government organizations as well as the community to create programs and spaces that empower the everyday person. He has captivated audiences with his colorful combination of words and music, intriguing monologues about civil rights, passionate pleas for peace as well as, his respect and appreciation for black women. Micah is a true charismatic duality of the sane and insane. His eccentric nature entraps audiences to listen and just maybe, feel a little something...
Tyler French is a writer and public humanist living in Washington, D.C. His first full-length book of poetry, He Told Me was published by Capturing Fire Press in 2019. He has writing in Impossible Archetype, Assaracus, Beech Street Review, Bending Genres Journal, Stoked Words, an anthology of queer poetry, and The Quarry, Split This Rock’s Social Justice Poetry Database. He is a co-creator and baker for Queer Cookies, a poetry series, bake sale, and poetry/cookbook supporting LGBTQ+ poets. See more of Tyler’s work at tylerhfrench.com and on Instagram @thfrench.