Palabra Pura: Does English Matter

Performers Adam Gottlieb and Angelina Llongueras use their original music, poetry and experience as activists, here and in Spain, to pursue the question: Does English matter? For English expression in Latino/a cultural and political communities, when does the implied “Spanish Only” remain empowering, and when does the English-dominant Latino/a activist need to transgress? This month’s program is coordinated by poet and educator Elizabeth Marino. Bring your own voice to the short pre-show open mic.

All “mother” tongues are welcome! Arrive early to sign up for the open mic.

Palabra Pura is pay-what-you-can ($5 suggested donation). Audience contributions support honorariums for the curators and featured authors.

This event is supported by Poets & Writers, Inc.

ABOUT OUR FEATURED AUTHORS

Adam Gottlieb is a poet/emcee, teaching-artist, musician, community organizer, and revolutionary from Chicago. As a teen he was featured in the 2009 documentary film “Louder Than A Bomb,” about the world’s largest youth poetry slam festival by the same name. Since then, he has gone on to perform and teach widely throughout Chicago, the U.S., and even the world, working mostly with youth as a facilitator of safe spaces for creative expression and cultural community-building. In March 2014 he co-founded the Chicago chapter of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade. That same year he was selected by the Guild Complex to be one of five emerging writers in a project called “Voices of Protest,” through which he participated in the “Kapittel” festival for Literature and Freedom of Speech in Stavanger, Norway. He leads a band, “Adam Gottlieb & One Love,” that plays his original songs. He is also a regular contributor of both poetry and articles to the People’s Tribune.

Angelina Llongueras is a multicultural, multilinguist artist, communicator at heart, and also a traveler. Angelina works as an actor, playwright, director, poet and interpreter. Her one woman show “Phoolan is Everyone” has traveled the world and is going to India this coming winter, and she has interacted with many international theatre groups interested in helping communities reconnect with their basic trust in their own cultural power and resources. Her credits include: “Metamorfosis” by La Fura dels Baus, “Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down” by Almodovar, and many others. She is originally from Barcelona, Catalonia.

ABOUT THIS MONTH’S PALABRA PURA CURATOR

Elizabeth Marino is a poet and educator, born and based in Chicago. Her chapbook, Debris: Poems and Memoir, went into a second printing in 2011 (Puddin’head Press). She was awarded 2011 Hispanic Serving Institution funding from NEIU for her Latina/o Community Creative Non-Fiction Workshop and received a 2012 CAAP grant and conference scholarship to attend the initial Las Dos Brujas Writers’ Workshops, where she studied with Juan Philipe Herrera, poet laureate of California. She was a Ragdale resident and holds an MA from UIC’s Writers’ Program, in addition to having studied literature at Oxford University on public scholarship. Her BA was from Barat College. Elizabeth’s poetry has appeared in print journals, anthologies and live performance. New work includes a chapbook from dancing girl press (“Ceremonies”) and two international print anthologies originating from India, due in 2015 (Muse of Peace and The Significant Anthology). A contribution to a jazz poetry anthology is also in the works. She has conducted a creative writing workshop for GLBTT seniors at the Center on Halsted. She was proud to see her work re-appear in the “Best of 2014” issue of the national Latino blog of culture and literature “La Bloga,” along with the FB page “Poets Responding to SB 1070.” She is a Revolutionary Poets Brigade (Chicago) member. She is also an English dominant Latina poet.