Join us for a live virtual reading with Kofi Antwi, Jesse K Baer, Louise Akers, and Tariq Shah. The Open Door series presents work from new and emerging poets and highlights writing instruction and poetic partnerships. Each event features readings by two Midwest writers and two of their current or recent students or writing partners.

Register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-door-kofi-antwi-jesse-k-baer-louise-akers-and-tariq-shah-tickets-216516425457

Kofi Antwi (he/him/his) is an African American writer, educator, assistant editor of Black Arts Movement Reader, and author of Tidal Wave. Antwi’s devoted work to inner city communities has established a relationship as facilitator of writing workshops that explore lyrics and memory as entries into one’s writing. His writing has been featured in the Staten Island Arts exhibition Know Me, an exploration into one’s identity through the lens of creative arts; he was also a featured performer at Snug Harbor’s Porch Play. Antwi’s poem “vintage” was nominated for Best Poem on The Web, and his writing has been published by Great Weather For Media, No, Dear, Rigorous, and various literary magazines and journals.

Jesse K Baer (they/them/theirs) received their MFA from Brown University in 2017. They were born in Georgia and grew up beneath southern power plants. They are the author of the chapbooks Holodeck One with Magic Helicopter Press and At One End with Essay Press as well as the collection Midwestern Infinity Doctrine with Apocalypse Party. They have been included in journals such as Prelude, Pinwheel, Bathhouse, Baest, The Tiny, and Bone Bouquet. They love horses.

Louise Akers (they/them/theirs) is a poet living in Queens, NY. They earned their MFA from Brown University, and received the 2017 Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop Prize for Innovative Writing and the 2019 Confrontation Poetry Prize. Their chapbook, Alien Year, was selected by Brandon Shimoda for the 2020 Oversound Chapbook Prize. Akers’s work can be found in the Berkeley Poetry Review, MIDTERM, Bat City Review, Fugue Journal, Confrontation Magazine, bæst journal, and elsewhere.

Tariq Shah (he/him/his) is the author of Whiteout Conditions (Two Dollar Radio, 2020). A Best of the Net award nominee, his work also appears in or is forthcoming from Whiskey Tit, DIAGRAM, jubilat, Heavy Feather Review, Shirley Magazine, No, Dear Magazine, and New Moons: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims Anthology edited by Kazim Ali (Red Hen Press, Nov 2021).

Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This reading will include live captioning and ASL interpretation. If you require any other accessibility measures, please contact us by emailing events@poetryfoundation.org. To find out more about Zoom’s own built-in accessibility features, please visit https://zoom.us/accessibility.

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Tags: Chicago, Jesse K Baer, Kofi Antwi, Louise Akers, Near North Side, Open Door Reading Series, Tariq Shah