Midwest Made: Poets in Chicago FAN Webinar

Acclaimed poet, educator, and editor Tara Betts curates an evening showcase of top Chicago poets: Mayda Del Valle, Julian David Randall, Jennifer Steele, and avery r. young. Ms. Betts will also perform a reading.

Tara Betts is the author of Break the Habit, Arc & Hue, and the forthcoming Refuse to Disappear. She coedited The Beiging of America and edited a critical edition of Philippa Duke Schuyler’s Adventures in Black and White. Betts is Poetry Editor at Another Chicago Magazine and The Langston Hughes Review and the Lit Editor at Newcity.

Mayda Del Valle got her start at New York City’s Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe, where she was the 2001 Grand Slam Champion and went on to win the 2001 National Poetry Slam Individual title, becoming the youngest and first Latina to do so. She has been featured in Latina Magazine, The New York Times, and Smithsonian Magazine.

Julian David Randall is a Living Queer Black poet and author of Refuse. He has received numerous fellowships, including from Cave Canem and Callaloo, as well as notable awards like the Pushcart Prize and the Publishing Triangle’s 2019 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award. His poetry has appeared in New York Times Magazine, Tin House and POETRY.

Jennifer Steele is the Executive Direcor of 826CHI and the author of the 2018 chapbook A House In Its Hunger. She is a 2015 Callaloo Fellow and 2016 Poetry Incubator Fellow. She is the founder of Revolving Door Arts, a nonprofit press dedicated to empowering the creative community. Steele received the 2019 Lucille Clifton Creative Parent Award.

Interdisciplinary teaching artist avery r. young is an Artist-In-Residence at the University of Chicago. Contemporary artist Theaster Gates called him “one of the most important thinkers on the Black experience.” Mr. young’s work has appeared in Cecil McDonald’s In The Company of Black, The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks, and other anthologies.