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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20251002T183000
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DTSTAMP:20250918T033744Z
CREATED:20250918T033743Z
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SUMMARY:GBOMA 2025
DESCRIPTION:The Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards (GBOMA) is returning for its 31st year! GBOMA is an annual poetry competition founded by Gwendolyn Brooks\, Illinois’ third Poet Laureate. This year\, the top contestants were selected by guest judge Dan “Sully” Sullivan\, and are invited to perform their original poems at this live finals event on October 2\, where the audience favorite is awarded the $500 prize.Come out and support the 2025 finalists for the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Awards (GBOMA) as they perform their works live.  Join us for an all-ages event of poetry and community. \n\n\n\n\n2025 GBOMA Finalists \n\n\n\n\n\nBarbara BarrowsChirskira CaillouetMars April CaultonSylvia EwingLisa FarverRocio FrancoGregorio GomezCrystal Vance Guerra \n\n\n\n\n\nWesley Frazier KeysMiguel MarzanaCiara MillerHilesh PatelSayeda QaderSandra SantiagoSamina Hadi-TabassumKara Rose Trojan
URL:https://guildcomplex.org/event/gboma-2025/
LOCATION:Epiphany Center for the Arts\, 201 South Ashland Ave.\, Chicago\, IL\, 60647\, United States
CATEGORIES:GBOMA
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20251008T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20251008T210000
DTSTAMP:20260327T062316Z
CREATED:20250919T181943Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260327T062316Z
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SUMMARY:¡Slam Diáspora en Vivo!
DESCRIPTION:Schedule\n\n6:30– Doors open/Sign Up7:00– Slam Starts8:30– Open Mic9:00– ¡ADIOS! \n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\nOpen to poets of all styles and ages! From anyone who is just starting\, to anyone who has been writing for decades\, are all welcome to participate. \n\n\n\nRequirements:Slam– 2 poems in Spanish/SpanglishOpen Mic– Any genre of performance art in any language! \n\n\n\nWe believe that poetry pertains to everyone\, and that all of us carry it within us. This slam is to experiment\, play\, and to let the words flow. \n\n\n\nRemember: the point is not the points\, the point is the community. We want to nurture a poetic community\, and invite new people to participate as audience members\, as poets\, and as spoken-word lovers. \n\n\n\nSlam Diáspora is the first Spanish slam in the U.S. and aims to create a space that unites Latinx poets in the US with poets in Latin America\, to form a poetry community despite borders. \n\n\n\nParticipants and winners from last year can participate again! \n\n\n\n\n\n¡Abierto a poetas de todos estilos y edades! Desde quien apenas esta empezando a escribir\, a quienes llevan décadas escribiendo– todos están bienvenidos a participar. \n\n\n\nRequisitos:Slam– Dos poemas (en español/spanglish)Open Mic– Música/Poesía/Cuento etc\, en cualquier idioma \n\n\n\nCreemos que la poesía le pertenece a todxs\, y que todxs traemos poesía adentro. Este Slam es para experimentar\, jugar\, y dejar que la palabra fluya. \n\n\n\nRecuerden: el punto no son los puntos\, sino la comuna. Queremos crecer como comunidad poética\, e invitar a nuevas personas a participar como audiencia\, cómo poetas\, y cómo amantes de la palabra viva. \n\n\n\nSlam Diáspora es el primer slam de poesía en español de los EEUU y busca crear un espacio que une poetas Latinx en los EEUU con poetas en Latinoamérica para fomentar una comunidad poética a pesar de las fronteras. \n\n\n\n¡Participantes y ganadores del año pasado pueden participar de nuevo! \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n 
URL:https://guildcomplex.org/event/slam-diaspora-2025-2/
LOCATION:Taqueria El Mezquite\, 1756 West 18th Street\, Chicago\, IL\, 60608\, United States
CATEGORIES:Partner Event,Slam Diáspora
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20251018T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20251018T160000
DTSTAMP:20261030T055510Z
CREATED:20261030T055221Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20261030T055510Z
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SUMMARY:Culture is Our Weapon: Lucille Clifton and Sonia Sanchez\, Good Women and Baddd
DESCRIPTION:HotHouse has developed a rich series of programming that shines a spotlight on artists that took great risk to speak out against the prevailing and dominant State forces – often constituted in dictatorships brutally repressing political (and artistic) opposition\, or otherwise antagonistic to human rights. \nPartnering with the HotHouse\, The Guild Complex has curated two events related to this theme. Aligning historical voices with local contemporary multi-disciplinary writers\, these special programs will re-assert the mutual commitment to present and affirm “we will not go back\,” and we will not accept the re- writing of our experiences through the lens of neo-colonial impositions. Culture is our Weapon! \nOn Sat Oct 18th\, the Guild Complex will present a screening of the film from the Lannan Foundation:\nWriters Uncensored-Lucille Clifton and Sonia Sanchez\, Good Women and Baddd. This will be\nimmediately followed by a brief discussion led by author Dr. Tara Betts\, from the DePaul University\nDepartment of Peace Studies\, along with a reading featuring Keli Stewart\, poet/writer\, and Angelique\nZobitz. \n \nDr. Tara Betts\, Ph.D. is the author of Refuse to Disappear\, Break the Habit\, and Arc & Hue. She also coedited The Beiging of America and edited a critical edition of Philippa Duke Schuyler’s Adventures in Black and White\, and Carving Out Rights from Inside the Prison Industrial Complex. In addition to her work as a teaching artist and mentor for young poets\, she has taught at several universities and at Stateville Prison via the Prison + Neighborhood Arts Project. She is the Inaugural Poet for the People Practitioner Fellow at University of Chicago. Betts currently serves as Poetry Editor at The Langston Hughes Review. \n \nKeli Stewart (she/her) is an author\, educator\, and arts activist whose writing has been published in Rhino\, Meridians\, and WarpLand: A Journal of Black Literature and Ideas\, among others. Her published works include the full-length collection Small Altars (Bronzeville Books\, 2021). She has received fellowships from Hedgebrook\, an Adrienne Reiner Hochstadt Award\, and an Augusta Savage Gallery Arts International Residency. Stewart was a 2021-2022 School of the Art Institute of Chicago Nichols Tower Artist-in Residence. An alum of the Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation and Callaloo summer writing workshops\, her writing won first place for a Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award from the Illinois Center for the Book. She earned a BA in fiction writing from Columbia College in 2002 and an MFA in poetry from Chicago State University. She is proud to be the founder and executive director of Front Porch Arts Center and founder of WestSide Arts House\, for which she opens her historic Victorian home to her community on Chicago’s West Side. \n\nAngelique Zobitz (she/her) writes from the lineage of Black womxn\, resilience\, and lyrical reclamation. Her debut full-length collection\, Seraphim (CavanKerry Press\, 2024)\, explores joy as communal resistance and was a finalist for the 2023 Jake Adam York Prize and a semifinalist for the 2022 Philip Levine Prize. She’s also a chapbook author: Burn Down Your House (Milk & Cake Press\, 2021)\, a white- out erasure of Madeleine L’Engle’s marriage\, and Love Letters to The Revolution (American Poetry Journal\, 2020). Her work has earned finalist spots for the 2022 St. Lawrence\, Tupelo\, and Georgia Poetry Prizes\, plus nods from Best of the Net\, Best New Poets\, and Pushcart Prize. Her poems appear in Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora\, The Journal\, Sugar House Review\, About Place\, and many others. She holds a B.A. in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has served as Poetry Editor at The Night Heron Barks and Ran Off with the Star Bassoon and Contributing Editor at Cave Wall. She writes to honor maternal legacies and to reimagine survival beyond colonial narratives. Find her at angeliquezobitz.com and @angeliquezobitz.
URL:https://guildcomplex.org/event/culture-is-our-weapon/
LOCATION:Front Porch Arts Center\, 5851 W Madison St\, Chicago\, IL\, 60644\, United States
CATEGORIES:Partner Event
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ORGANIZER;CN="Guild Literary Complex":MAILTO:info@guildcomplex.org
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20251019T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20251019T160000
DTSTAMP:20261030T055541Z
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SUMMARY:Culture is Our Weapon: The Power of the Word - Amiri Baraka
DESCRIPTION:HotHouse has developed a rich series of programming that shines a spotlight on artists that took great risk to speak out against the prevailing and dominant STATE forces – often constituted in dictatorships brutally repressing political (and artistic) opposition or otherwise antagonistic to human rights. \nPartnering with the HotHouse\, The Guild Complex has curated two events related to this theme. Aligning historical voices with local contemporary multi-disciplinary writers\, these special programs will re-assert the mutual commitment to present and affirm “we will not go back” and we will not accept the re- writing of our experiences through the lens of neo-colonial impositions. Culture is our Weapon! \nOn Sunday\, Oct 19th\, the Guild Complex will present a screening of the documentary\, The Power of the Word featuring author/activist Amiri Baraka. This will be immediately followed by a brief discussion and reading with Billy Tuggle\, Antonio Foli and Kao Ra Zen. \n  \n\nAntonio Foli (formerly kwabena foli) is a multidisciplinary artist\, writer\, filmmaker\, and scholar born in Belgium and raised on the South Side of Chicago. His work spans poetry\, digital collage\, cinema\, and academic research\, all rooted in a deep exploration of Black interiority\, masculinity\, mental health\, and ancestral memory. He is the author of three major poetry collections: learning rhythm (Flowered Concrete)\, a lyrical biomyth rooted in journaling and healing pedagogy; ON GOD (Candor Arts)\, a visceral portrait of urban spirituality and street language; and THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO SAY OUR NAME\, a self-published collection confronting grief\, race\, and bipolar disorder type-II through a distinctly Black lens. His poems have appeared in The Los Angeles Review\, Meridian\, Crab Orchard Review\, Salt Hill\, Cream City Review\, and others. He has performed nationally as a Chicago Poetry Slam Champion and appeared at venues and platforms such as the All Def Poetry and the Green Mill. Foli’s visual/digital work blends photography\, design\, and collage into ritualized archives—most notably in series like god gives rest/not sleep\, blk excellence\, and juke. His triptychs and digital altars have been exhibited at Seerveld Gallery\, Elastic Arts\, Chicago Artist Coalition and have been shared over 400 million times online. His aesthetic centers lo-fi techniques\, ancestral rhythm\, and spiritual narrative—honoring Black grief\, celebration\, and stillness as sacred acts. \nHis cinematic debut\, Rise of the Tiger\, is a psychological martial arts horror film set in 1969 Harlem. Told in stark black and white\, it explores trauma\, hallucination\, and obsession through the descent of a prodigious fighter. The film expands on his written work’s themes—dissecting legacy\, delusion\, and the metaphysical cost of becoming a legend. Foli holds a B.A. in Sociology and an M.A. in Communication Studies from Southern Illinois University. He’s also held residencies at Ragdale\, Banff Centre for Arts\, and the Poetry Center of Chicago. His academic interests include Black media theory\, trauma representation\, spiritual poetics\, and performance as pedagogy. He has served as a teaching artist\, workshop facilitator\, and cultural worker in both academic and community spaces\, weaving scholarship with creativity and ritual. \nAcross form and field\, Antonio Foli creates work that is devotional\, interrogative\, and deeply human. \n\nBilly Tuggle is a parent\, husband\, educator\, mentor\, and proud South Side Chicagoan. A literary games\ncompetitor\, recognized by Odyssey On-line as one of the “Top 30 Slam Poets over 30. His work has\nbeen displayed at the Chicago HipHop Heritage Museum\, often centering on urban culture\, social\njustice\, and Afrofuturism. Among two volumes\, several chapbooks\, and numerous anthology & journal\nplacements\, Billy’s latest collection- A Tree (Falls In) The Hood- is available from Swimming With\nElephants Press. It earned him a “Best New Collection” nod in the Chicago Reader 2024 poll; and a\nPushcart Prize nomination. \n\nKao Ra Zen is a Chicago-based rapper\, spoken word poet\, multimedia performance artist\, video\ndirector\, recording engineer\, curator\, photographer\, and educator. Kao has performed and/or curated at\nvenues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art\, Symphony Center\, DANK-Haus\, Elastic Arts\,\nConstellation\, Alhambra Palace\, Oliva Gallery\, and Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago; in addition to\nperformances and screenings in New York; Berlin\, Germany; and turku\, Finland. Kao earned his Associate in Fine Arts degree from Harold Washington College and then earned his BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Much of Kao’s written\, musical\, and performance work addresses\nhistorical and contemporary societal concerns\, existential matters\, and promotes self expression\,\nfostering community\, and challenging oppressive systems and intolerant perspectives.
URL:https://guildcomplex.org/event/culture-is-our-weapon-2/
LOCATION:Front Porch Arts Center\, 5851 W Madison St\, Chicago\, IL\, 60644\, United States
CATEGORIES:Partner Event
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