Today You Are Perfect - April 2024
In our monthly reading series, "Today You Are Perfect," we bring poets and artists and listeners together to share their words. Come join us in April when we celebrate Poetry Month with six wonderful readers. Along with great sounds, you can expect delicious snacks and wine!
The Lineup: Wendy Xu, Darius Stewart, Margaret Yapp, Eli Arteaga-Feregrino, Adrienne Rose, Jennifer MacBain-Stephens
Date & Time: Sunday, April 14, 3:30-5 pm
Location: PorchLight Literary, 1019 E. Washington, Iowa City
Your Hosts: Iowa City Poetry & PorchLight Literary
Wendy Xu
Wendy Xu is most recently the author of The Past (2021), and Phrasis (2017), named one of the 10 Best Poetry Books of 2017 by the New York Times Book Review. Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, New York Review of Books, Tin House, The New Republic, Poetry, and widely elsewhere. She is assistant professor of writing at The New School in NYC, and visiting assistant professor of poetry this semester at The Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Darius Stewart
Darius Stewart is a poet and writer from Knoxville, Tennessee. He is the author of the poetry collection Intimacies in Borrowed Light (EastOver Press 2022) and Be Not Afraid of My Body: A Lyrical Memoir (Belt Publishing 2024). His poems and creative nonfiction have appeared in the Arkansas International, the Brooklyn Review, Callaloo, Cimarron Review, Fourth Genre, Salamander, Verse Daily, and others. He holds MFAs from the Michener Center for Writers and the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program. Currently, he is a Lulu Johnson Doctoral Fellow in English at the University of Iowa.
Margaret Yapp
Margaret Yapp is from Iowa City, Iowa. She works as the managing editor at Prompt Press and runs Rampage Party Press, an ongoing poetry broadside project. She has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Iowa Center for the Book. She has taught classes in literature, creative writing, and book arts for the University of Iowa and Iowa City Poetry. Her work has appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Second Factory, Asphalte, and elsewhere. Her debut book of poems, Green for Luck, is forthcoming from EastOver Press (April 2024). You can read more at Margaret’s website which is margaret yapp dot com / instagram @bigbabymarg.
Eli Arteaga-Feregrino
Eli Arteaga-Feregrino is a Mexican born writer who grew up in North Carolina. An Iowa City Poetry Slam Winner, their writing combines their immigrant experiences with the vibrant imagery with which they perceive the world around them.
Adrienne Rose
Adrienne Rose has published one chapbook and numerous poems and translations in US and Canadian journals. She is the founding editor of Ancient Exchanges journal of translation, and she directs the undergraduate Translation program at the University of Iowa.
Jennifer MacBain-Stephens
Jennifer MacBain-Stephens (she/her) went to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and now lives in Iowa where she is landlocked. Her fifth, full length poetry collection, “Pool Parties” is now available from Unsolicited Press. She is the author of fifteen chapbooks. Some of her work appears in The Pinch, South Broadway Ghost Society, Cleaver, Zone 3, Slant, Yalobusha Review, and Grist. She is a member of the Iowa City Poetry Advisory Council. Find her online at http://jennifermacbainstephens.com/.
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