Online event – April 26, 2021 @ 7 PM EDT
In celebration of national poetry month, join host Collin Kelley and all of us online for an evening of Poetry Pride and discussion with some of the south’s most beloved LGBTQ+ community members – sponsored by 7 Stages, Poetry Atlanta, The NEA Big Read and Decatur Center For The Book.
Start the evening off with our sorbet poet: Nicholas Goodly previewing their poem specially created for Charmed Ones ~ premiering April 29 – May 1 live @ 7 Stages! Next, indulge in Kai Coggin’s fierce offering, followed by Jordyn King’s brave dive into self love. Our rockstar poet Theresa Davis gifts us with a decadent finale. We will end with a nightcap of your voices, inviting all to offer magic moments, lingering tastes, and opportunities for questions.
In response to the book of poems, Advice From The Lights, by Stephanie Burt, all poets connect their lives to the freeing expression of poetry, pride, and possibility. Burt’s 4th full length collection of poems is filled with witty talking objects and animals grappling with their unique identities: a hermit crab trying to find the right shell, a blue betta fish named Scarlet, and a roly-poly bug that doesn’t like the way it looks. Some poems imagine what her life would have been like if she had been raised as a girl. They’re placed in stark contrast alongside other poems from her actual childhood raised as a boy. (NEA Big Read)
Jordyn King (They/She) is a performance and slam poet situated in Atlanta, GA whose work often deals with issues surrounding the intersection of black and queer identities. Jordyn’s work has been showcased in events throughout the United States, including at Atlanta Pride 2019, and the 2019 Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam, where Jordyn led their own novice team, Scattered Heart Slam, in Boston. Jordyn has published two collections, With Visionary Intent and Paris Resurrected, and is recognized as Femme Mafia’s first Poet Laureate. In June 2020, they released a chapbook, The 12 Apostles of the Queer Femme.
Nicholas Goodly is a writer and artist living in Atlanta. They are the writing editor of Wussy Magazine, a Cave Canem fellow, author of the Georgia Writer’s Association guest blog Free Verse, and team member of the performing arts platform Fly on a Wall. Nicholas is a finalist for the 2020 Jake Adam York Prize, the runner-up for the 2019 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and recipient of the 2017 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship.
Kai Coggin is the author of PERISCOPE HEART (Swimming with Elephants 2014), WINGSPAN (Golden Dragonfly Press 2016), and INCANDESCENT (Sibling Rivalry Press 2019), as well as a spoken word album SILHOUETTE (2017). She is a queer woman of color who thinks Black Lives Matter, a teaching artist in poetry with the Arkansas Arts Council, and the host of the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country—Wednesday Night Poetry. Recently awarded the 2021 Governor’s Arts Award and named “Best Poet in Arkansas” by the Arkansas Times, her fierce and powerful poetry has been nominated four times for The Pushcart Prize, as well as Bettering American Poetry 2015, and Best of the Net 2016 and 2018. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in SOLSTICE, Cultural Weekly , Bellevue Literary Review , Entropy, SWWIM, Sinister Wisdom, Calamus Journal, Lavender Review, Luna Luna, Blue Heron Review, Yes, Poetry and elsewhere. Coggin is Associate Editor at The Rise Up Review.
Theresa Davis is an educator, storyteller, poet, author, poetry slam champion and the host of the award winning open mic Java Speaks. She has performed on stages across the nation as a poet, storyteller, and keynote speaker. In May 2013, her first full collection of poems entitled “After This We Go Dark” was published by Sibling Rivalry Press. “After This We Go Dark” became an American Library Association Honoree, and the book can now be checked out in local and college libraries around the world. Her latest poetry collection “Drowned: A Mermaid’s Manifesto”, released with Sibling Rivalry Press, in fall of 2016 received the award“Ten Books All Georgians Should Read”.
In addition to being a teaching artist and outreach poetry coordinator for Georgia Tech for 6 years, Theresa hosts and participates in many of the lit events around Atlanta. Her one-woman show “Then They’ll Tell You it’s all in Your Head” Made its debut as a part of 7 Stages Home Brew series in the fall of 2017 as live theater and in 2020 as a film in the same series.. Theresa’s new collection, “Dirt” is due to be released in the fall of 2021. Theresa is the Literary Events Coordinator and The Charles “Jikki” Riley Memorial Library, facilitator for The Arts Exchange.
