Wed 9/9 @ 7PM
Listen as Anisfield-Wolf Award-winning poet Jericho Brown reads his poetry at Trinity Cathedral and be prepared to find out why this lyrical poet deserves to win an Anisfield-Wolf award. Jericho will be joined on stage by RA Washington, author of a couple dozen books and awardee of a Creative Workforce Fellowship from Cuyahoga Arts and Culture in 2014. He will also be reading from his works.
The free event is a collaboration of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards and the Cleveland Foundation and Brews + Prose at Market Garden Brewery. The great walls of Trinity Cathedral will witness the words emerge into the somber and respectful high-ceilinged space like sentries. Gather into the quiet and be present to words of truth. The artists are alive with their craft and their need to create and spin their words into the waiting space.
Washington’s most recent work includes The Paris Notebooks (NightBallet Press, 2015) and the novel CITI (Red Giant Books, 2015). In 2013 Washington co-founded Guide To Kulchur: Text, Art & News, a bookstore, publishing imprint and show space in Cleveland’s Detroit-Shoreway Neighborhood. You can find out more about GTK Creative, a publication of stories and poems that make us think at guidetokulchur.com. Washington’s reach is beyond Cleveland: more than 100 of his multi-media, music and writing projects were recently organized into a retrospective for Fact/co in Montreal, Quebec, through Constellation Records.
Jericho Brown earned his undergraduate degree from Dillard University in New Orleans, took up speech writing and completed an MFA from the University of New Orleans before earning his doctorate in literature and creative writing at the University of Houston. In addition to the Anisfield-Wolf award, Brown has won fellowships from prestigious institutions and worked on The New Testament while at the Radcliff Institute at Harvard University. He now teaches at English at Emory University in Atlanta. For more on Brown, visit jerichobrown.com/. When you read “The Colosseum,” which appears on the website, feel the words; they are poignant and thoughtful and rich, yet simple and spare, saying the tough stuff that needs to be said.
The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards recognize books that expand our understanding of racism and our appreciation of the rich diversity of human cultures. Poet and philanthropist Edith Anisfield Wolf established the book prizes in 1935 in honor of her father and husband, who were passionate about raising the issues of social justice. The Cleveland Foundation, the world’s first community foundation, has administered the Anisfield-Wolf prize since 1963. Honorees will be celebrated at the Ohio Theatre in downtown Cleveland on Thu 9/10. In the past, the Cleveland Public Library, through book discussions, has enhanced readers’ experience of the muscular books that have won previously. This year’s winners also include Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings; Richard S. Dunn’s A Tale of Two Plantations; Marilyn Chin’s Hard Love Province; and David Brion Davis, who won the Lifetime Achievement award. James, Dunn and Chin will also be doing events in town Wed-Fri.
CoolCleveland would be lax if it didn’t mention Brews + Prose at the Market Garden Brewery. Determined to expose great literature to the masses, this monthly event brings writers and readers together for evenings of listening to lyrical words while drinking beer. Catch the fun and seriousness every month at Market Garden Brewery in Ohio City. The poetry readings at Trinity Cathedral will increase awareness of good literature, and if you care about really good writing, you’ll want to be there.
Claudia Taller is author of the novel Daffodils and Fireflies and 30 Perfect Days, Finding Abundance in Ordinary Life. Find out more at claudiajtaller.com/
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Cleveland, OH 44115
Cleveland, OH 44113