| Current Guild Event |
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Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 - 7:30pm The Guild Complex is pleased to announce the 16th anniversary of the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards (GBOMA) for poetry. Twenty semi-finalists will be selected from open submissions. These 20 poets will perform their work in front of an audience on Tuesday, July 14. Poets must be 18 years of age or older by the date of the reading and a legal resident of Illinois to enter. The winner will receive a $500 cash prize. Submission guidelines: • Work must be previously unpublished. • Only one submission per poet – no exceptions please. (If you can’t decide which poem to submit, ask a friend to help you decide, but not the Guild Complex.) |
| News & Views |
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Alternative Lit 50 List -- 2009 Well, it’s time for me to get back on my soapbox. And, at least this year I can look like I’m biting the hand that’s trying to give me a pat on the back versus chewing sour grapes (which could have been the complaint lodged at me last year.) Newcity released its Lit 50 list or “Who really books in Chicago” this week. I’m back on the list, and possibly at the highest rank I’ve ever received, but I have to say that it feels like I’ve just been nominated to my junior high’s badminton hall of fame. For a paper whose tag line is “Street Smart Chicago,” the list reads a lot more like a who’s who of big box stores and historical movers-and-shakers whose current status is “transitional” than any episode of Literature: Life on the Streets/Chicago. If I thought this was the real state of literature in Chicago, I’d be very nervous. Hell, I’d be sad. But I know better. Most of the people who have been in the trenches for years – through every kind of economy – the same people who the big box stores and library branches call when they want some “local flavor” – they never make the list. But I know how hard these literary warriors work for meager compensation, if any, all for the love of literature. To not give them their due is Crime and Punishment-able (sorry for the pun, I couldn’t help it.) |