CHICAGO, February 5, 2025—The Poetry Foundation announces its roster of free public events for the spring 2025 season under the theme “Power Lines,” inspired by the landmark anthology of the same name released by the Guild Literary Complex 25 years ago. The electrifying event season highlights new work by Chicago and Midwest presses, partner organizations, and authors.
Tapping into Collective Power
The season kicks off on February 27 with Archive(s) of Style, an event at the Poetry Foundation honoring Black History Month and Audre Lorde’s birthday. Poets Cheryl Clarke, Harmony Holiday, Nikki Patin, and Natalia Molebatsi introduce an intergenerational lineage of Black queer feminist poetry with readings from their latest titles.
March 6 offers reflections from Like a Hammer: Poets on Mass Incarceration, Haymarket Books’ anthology of writers speaking on the United States prison-industrial complex. Editor Diana Marie Delgado and contributors, including John Murillo and Nicole Sealey, will read from the anthology.
In partnership with the Center for Native Futures, the Poetry Foundation celebrates the release of Blood Wolf Moon by Elise Paschen, who appears with Osage visual artists June Carpenter and Lydia Cheshewalla on April 10. The event also features Esther Belin, whose guest-edited issue of Poetry magazine, Diné Poetics, publishes in March and includes a special roundtable on Indigenous poetics from poets writing in Diné, Osage, Delaware, Nez Perce, and other Indigenous languages.
Celebrations continue in May when Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize recipient Kimiko Hahn launches her retrospective collection Ghost Forest with a reading alongside three other poets with new books: Sarah Ghazal Ali, Mónica de la Torre, and Rosalie Moffett. On May 22, the Poetry Foundation commemorates the 25th anniversary of the anthology Power Lines, an assemblage of Chicago’s spoken word poets and poets of letters published by Tia Chucha Press, the publishing branch of the Guild Literary Complex. Featured readers include Ana Castillo, Angela Jackson, Tyehimba Jess, Simone Muench, Mark Turcotte, anthology editors Julie Parson Nesbitt, Luis Rodriguez, and Michael Warr, and others.
The Forms & Features workshop series connects poets of all experience levels to and through poetry. Generative workshops on forms, techniques, and themes are offered throughout the year, both online and in person. Workshop participants are invited to share their work in a celebratory Community Reading on June 12. Monthly book clubs offer another chance to connect over poetry from anywhere.
“Power lines run through our veins, an energetic current connecting us to the past and fueling us toward the futures of our imagination,” said public programs manager and season curator, Noa Fields. “We invite you to tap in with us throughout this exciting new season of events that amplify poetry and celebrate poets.”
– Press Release from The Poetry Foundation