This installment of Palabra Pura will explore the effect on individuals and communities of not fitting in to preconceived Latino identities. It is curated by Jennifer Patiño and featuring poets Beatriz Ruiz, Anthony Michael Cooremans and RIK Vazquez. Beatriz J Ruiz was born and raised in Chicago and Guanajuato. She is a...
PALABRA PURA: "ONE POET / ONE POEM" Wednesday, Janurary 16, 7:30pm, FREELa Bruquena Restaurant (Upstairs), 2726 W. Division The Guild Literary Complex is pleased to kick off the eighth season of PALABRA PURA with "One Poet / One Poem". Join us as past readers retake the stage to share their work in Spanish, English, or a combination...
The Guild Literary Complex (GLC) continues the eighth year of Palabra Pura with an evening of bilingual poetry titled, “Whether in Chicago.” Curated by Rafael Franco, this event asks us to consider what role, if any, weather plays, whether significantly or not, in writing and how that writing might weather the winds of literary exploration. The...
THE GUILD LITERARY COMPLEX and CHICAGO DANZTHEATRE ENSEMBLE PRESENT: “A NIGHT OF LOVE” “There is a community of the spirit. Join it, and feel the delight of walking in the noisy street and being the noise...” -Rumi The Guild Literary Complex and Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble are pleased to present “A Night of Love”, an evening of performance, poetry, and...
Dawn Herrera Featuring Dawn Herrera Helphand and Denise Ruiz, Poems as Stories, Stories as Poems explores the ways that poetry opens up narrative possibilities. At once funny and fierce, thoughtful and bizarre, this month's Palabra Pura, curated by Coya Paz, brings verse and storytelling together through the words of two powerful women. Dawn Herrera Helphand...
Beverly Arts Center The Guild Literary Complex is pleased to announce the 2013 remount of “Tour Guides”. Produced in 2010 as part of the Poetry Performance Incubator, “Tour Guides”, gives audiences a lyrical tour of the Chicago tourists never see. Originally written by a team of six, "Tour Guides" has had twelve distinct voices...
Join us this April for "Telling Our Stories Through the Body," curated by Erika Sánchez and featuring Juana Iris Goergen and Ruben Quesada. More details below. Erika L. Sánchez Erika L. Sánchez is a poet and freelance writer living in Chicago. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Illinois at Chicago, was a...
You are cordially invited to our fourth annual benefit, Talkin' Blues, honoring Sterling Plumpp, renowned Chicago-based Blues poet, on May 14. The Guild Literary Complex will pay tribute to his decades-long achievement on stage at Rosa’s Blues Lounge in Logan Square (3420 W. Armitage). Plumpp with be joined by Jeffery Renard Allen, Duriel Harris, Tyehimba...
Join us for a monthly bilingual poetry series, guest curated by Raul Dorantes and featuring Mark Litwicki, Martha Cecelia Rivera, and Febronio Zatarain. On Wednesday, May 15, 2013, Palabra Pura presents “Noche de novelas/Night of Novels,” curated by Raúl Dorantes. This is a rare opportunity to hear three outstanding Chicago writers read excerpts of their novels...
Guild Literary Complex, Third World Press, and The American Writers Museum present the first annual BROOKSDAY at The Chicago Cultural Center! Join us, as we are creating the first annual marathon reading of the works of Gwendolyn Brooks on her birthday! We want to honor her tremendous legacy as an artist and an iconic figure of...
Join us at this year's Printers Row Lit Fest for a special reading by past contest winners and poets from our Poetry Performance Incubator. Reading takes place at noon on June 9 at the Arts and Poetry Stage. More details to come.
Our monthly bilingual poetry event. Curated by Johanny Vázquez Paz featuring Dinorah Cortés-Vélez and Teresa Vázquez. Dinorah Cortés-Vélez Dinorah Cortés-Velez Dinorah Cortés-Vélez is from Isabela, Puerto Rico. She has resided in Wisconsin since 1997. She is an Assistant Professor of Latin American literature at Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA. She earned her doctoral degree at...
Due to a severe weather forecast we have postponed tonight's event. Applied Words: "Broken Windows" will now be held on Tuesday, September 3, 2013. Visit the new event page for more information.
Afro-Latino(a)s/Caribbeans are challenged to reconcile what are seen as conflicting identities. The Guild Literary Complex sheds poetic light on the topic with “The Diaspora Daughters Speak,” the July installment of our monthly bilingual poetry series Palabra Pura, curated by Sandra Posados and featuring poets Yolanda Nieves and Maya Emma Nnena Ruth Odim (Maya Odim). “The...
Guild Literary Complex is pleased to announce the 20th Annual Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards. Join us Tuesday July 23, 2013, 7:00 pm, at the Chopin Theater, 1542 W Division Street, for a live voting event and award ceremony. Preliminary judges, Gwendolyn A. Mitchell and Noël Jones have narrowed the submissions down to just 20...
The Poetry Performance Incubator is seeking poets and other writers to collaborate on the creation of a workshop production of Like Bread, a new theatrical performance about making space for a creative life. We are particularly interested in working with poets from a broad range of aesthetics, backgrounds, ages, and Chicago communities. Inspired by the Roque Dalton poem “Like You,”...
If urban design is the language of the city, where is the story – and who tells it? In Applied Words: on Architecture and the Urban Plan, the Guild Literary Complex invites writers to examine our relationships with the built environment. “Broken Windows,” the first reading in a series of three to continue from now...
Poets meet muse at the September installment of our monthly bilingual poetry series, Palabra Pura, curated by Irasema Gonzalez and featuring poets Diana Pando and Xánath Caraza. “Inspiration” takes place Wednesday, September 18, 2013, at 7:30 PM at La Bruquena restaurant, 2726 W. Division. The program will be spoken in English and Spanish. Admission is...
Work Is Love Made Visible will feature visiting poet Jeanetta Calhoun Mish and include Chicago authors Quaraysh Ali Lansana and Eduardo Arocho for an evening of working class poetry and observations. Bring your poetry on the theme to share in the open mic that starts the event! About the authors: Jeanetta Calhoun Mish is a...
A reading on the theme of “working class poetry,” this is a program of Occupy Rogers Park Chicago and is co-sponsored by Guild Complex and Chicago Consortium For Working-Class Studies. Featured readers include poet and scholar Jeanetta Calhoun Mish and poet Adam Gottlieb. An open mic begins the program, so bring your own poetry related...
If urban design is the language of the city, where is the story – and who tells it? In "Re-Built: Writers on Architecture and the Urban Plan" the Guild Literary Complex presents Chicago authors examining human-scale relationships with the built environment, the history of Homan Square, and what comes next. This reading is part of...
Every fall we recognize outstanding short fiction and non-fiction from across the State of Illinois and award $250 cash prizes to one outstanding writer in each category. Please join us on October 23, 7:30 pm, at the Chopin Theater, located at 1543 W. Division Street, as we celebrate the authors at a special reading and...
We very pleased to be partnering with Poetry Foundation and Red Hen Press for this month's Palabra Pura. Celebrate the inaugural winner and judge of the Letras Latinas/Red Hen Poetry Prize. Judge Orlando Ricardo Menes directs the creative writing program at the University of Notre Dame. His third full-length collection, Fetish, won the 2012 Prairie...
Join us for an in-progress performance of the brand new Poetry Performance Incubator production, Like Bread. Inspired by the Roque Dalton poem “Like You,” Like Bread will explore the relationship between writing and social struggles, the way that writing can transform a life, and how challenging (but joyful) it can be to claim oneself “a writer.” We are...
Join us for an in-progress performance of the brand new Poetry Performance Incubator production, Like Bread. Inspired by the Roque Dalton poem “Like You,” Like Bread will explore the relationship between writing and social struggles, the way that writing can transform a life, and how challenging (but joyful) it can be to claim oneself “a writer.” We are so...
You are cordially invited to TONIC: a soulful celebration! It's been a year of recognition and achievement for the Guild, from inaugurating Brooksday to receiving a major MacArthur Foundation grant. We plan to celebrate with a night of music, libations, and the best company: YOU. It will be a TONIC, something good for the soul,...
Our monthly bilingual poetry night returns to its usual destination: the always-fabulous La Bruquena! Join us for this final Palabra Pura of the year as multimedia artist Miquel Lopez Lemus presents a cantologia on love. Twenty-seven (!) Palabra Pura poets contributed a new poem on the theme for this published collection, and many will be on hand to...
The Guild will have a table at the Chicago Book Expo on Sunday, November 24 from 11am-5pm. The Chicago Book Expo has "Chicago’s best independent publishers and authors selling books, plus free author readings, panel discussions, writing workshops, and bilingual/Spanish programs" available to the public for free! Visit our booth, and enjoy the opportunity to...
We are very pleased to be partnering with the Poetry Foundation for a special Poetry off the Shelf. Inspired by Cave Canem and Kundiman, CantoMundo is a national collective for Latina/o poets. Carmen Giménez-Smith is the author of four poetry collections—Milk and Filth, Goodbye, Flicker, The City She Was, and Odalisque in Pieces. Sheryl Luna received...
Angel de la Luna and the 5th Glorious Mystery M. Evelina Galang will read from her new young adult novel, Angel de la Luna and the 5th Glorious Mystery at Women & Children First on Wednesday, January 8th at 7:30 p.m. in an event co-presented by Guild Literary Complex and Coffee House Press. The novel...