Public Poetry exists to bring together the public and the poetry community, and to create a buzz about poetry. Join us for a free poetry reading series presented on the first Saturday of each month.
These interactive poetry events will feature local and visiting poets, and the occasional local celebrity or public figure. Poets will be available for Q&A and book signing at the end of each program.
The series is a partnership between Public Poetry and Houston Public Library.
Spring Series | Oak Forest Neighborhood Library
Saturday, April 6 | 2 PM
Usha Akella has authored two books of poetry and a musical. Widely published in U.S. and Indian-based journals, and recently in Harper Collins’ India, Anthology of Indian English Poets 2012, she reads at many international poetry festivals. Her work has been translated into Macedonian, Malayalam, Spanish, Turkish, and Slovenian. Founder of the Poetry Caravan, which provides poetry readings and workshops to the disadvantaged in Westchester County, NY and Austin, TX, she also teaches creative writing workshops in Austin.
Scott Chalupa is pursuing a B.A. in creative writing and a minor in Spanish at the University of Houston (UH). In 2012, he won the Howard Moss Prize in Poetry, and his work is forthcoming in The Aletheia. He serves as co-editor at Glass Mountain, the undergraduate literary journal at UH, and also works with Boldface, an annual conference hosted at UH for emerging writers.
Ange Mlinko is the author of the forthcoming book of poems, Marvelous Things Overheard (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), as well as three previous collections. In 2009, the Poetry Foundation awarded her the Randall Jarrell Award in Criticism for her poetry criticism, which has appeared in Poetry, The Nation, and The London Review of Books. She is on the graduate faculty at the University of Houston.
Chuck Taylor is a poet and professor at Texas A&M University. He has written memoirs and novels, but is best known for books of poetry, including Flying: A Primer, Like Li-Po Laughing at the Lonely Moon, and his newest book of poetry, At the Heart. He founded Slough Press, a small press publishing since 1973, and has worked for the Galveston Arts Council in the Poets in the School program.
Spring Series | Oak Forest Neighborhood Library
Saturday, May 4 | 2 PM
Gerald Cedillo attended the University of St. Thomas and studied creative writing at the University of Houston, where he completed a senior thesis in poetry under the tutelage of Tony Hoagland. He has worked with Writers in the Schools (WITS) and with Meta-Four Houston, and currently teaches 6th grade English at Patrick Henry Middle School for Citizen Schools in northwest Houston. As a performance poet, he was featured on the 2012 Word Around Town (WAT) tour.
Bao-Long Chu earned an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Houston’s creative writing program. Originally from Vietnam, his poems are anthologized in several books, including Good, Watermark, and Both Sides Now: The Poetry of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath. Bound, his libretto for Houston Grand Opera’s East + West initiative, will premiere during the 2014 Vietnamese Lunar New Year. As associate director for Writers in the Schools (WITS), he plans and implements the organization’s creative writing programs.
Cindy Huyser is a poet, computer programmer, and former power plant operator. Her poems are in various journals and anthologies, including The Comstock Review, Borderlands, and Wild Plum. She served as co-editor on five editions of the Texas Poetry Calendar and hosts monthly poetry readings at BookWoman in Austin. An annual participant in the Austin International Poetry Festival, she was also a juried and featured poet at the 2011 and 2012 Houston Poetry Festival, respectively.
Katharine Jager is a poet and medieval scholar. Her poetry and essays have been published in The Gettysburg Review, Canteen, Friends Journal, The Red River Review, The Year’s Work in English Studies, and Medieval Perspectives, among other journals. She teaches writing and literature at the University of Houston-Downtown.