The Guild is honored to host a celebration of Kent Foreman, whose career has spanned five decades and whom the Chicago Tribune has called the "elder statesman of spoken word." Kent has performed with noted artists such as Amiri Baraka, Maya Angelou, Max Roach, Allen Ginsberg, his mentor Oscar Brown, Jr.; he has influenced and mentored many more. Kent has won the Chicago Historical Society's esteemed Carl Sandburg Award, has been to the finals of the national poetry slam three times and appeared on Def Poetry Jam.The program will feature performances by Kent and friends Roger Bonair-Agard, Regie Gibson and Marty McConnell, each one invited by Kent as some of Chicago's strongest poets. Due to Kent's health it will be a short set, so plan to get there early for what is sure to be a powerful evening.

Watch Guild Complex archive video of Kent here. You can also hear Kent perform some of his work here and here.

Roger Bonair-Agard is a native of Trinidad and Tobago, a Cave Canem fellow and co-author of Burning Down the House. He is a two-time National Slam Champion and is co-founder of The louderARTS Project. Roger's work has been widely anthologized and commissioned and he has appeared on HBO's Def Poetry Jam and the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour. His publications include Tarnish and Masquerade published in 2000.

Former National Poetry Slam Individual Champion, Regie Gibson, received his MFA in Creative Writing from New England College. He has performed, taught, and lectured at universities, theaters and various other venues in seven countries including Havana, Cuba. In 2008 he competed for and received the Absolute Poetry Award in Monfalcone, Italy. Himself and his work appear in the New Line Cinema film "love jones” a film based on events in his life. He has featured on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and numerous times on NPR and has been nominated for a Boston Emmy Award for his performance on WGBH-2's Art Close-Up. He has received the Walker Scholarship for poetry from the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and is a Chernin Center for the Arts Writer’s Fellow. He has been published in Poetry Magazine, Harvard’s Divinity Magazine and The Iowa Review and The Good Men Project among others publications. His volume of poems “Storms Beneath the Skin” received the Golden Pen Award. Regie is the founder and Artistic Director of the literary-music ensemble NeoN JuJu which combines music and classic and contemporary literature. In 2010 Regie has received the 2010 Massachusetts Cultural Council Award for poetry.

Marty McConnell is a co-founder of the louderARTS Project (NYC) and the director/founder of Vox Ferus (Chicago). She is Chicago's 2010 Grand Slam Champion, competed in seven National Poetry Slams, represented New York Cityat the 2009 Women of the World Poetry Slam, and appeared on two seasons of HBO's* Def Poetry Jam*. Her work is widely anthologized and published, as well as cited in nonfiction works including "How to Read the Oral Poem" and "The God of Yes: Living the Life You Were Promised."* www.martyoutloud.com*