*Mouth to Mouth: Open Mic and Showcase seeks to provide a safer community space for queer and trans BIPOC folx and and rising migrant artists. We uplift these voices and ask all allies to step back and show your support by cheering our performers on.*

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Mic Check! Are you a writer? Come share your work at our next edition of our open mic and showcase, Mouth to Mouth. Hosted by AAWW fav’ poets Kay Ulanday Barrett and Jaden Fields, and featuring Kemi Alabi, and Bani Amor!

*Captions provided by ACS Captioning
** ASL Interpretation provided 

Kay Ulanday Barrett (@brownroundboi) is a poet, performer, and cultural strategist; their collection More Than Organs received a 2021 Stonewall Book Honor Award by the American Library Association and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. Barrett has featured at Lincoln Center, the United Nations, Symphony Space, the Poetry Foundation, Princeton University, the Hemispheric Institute, and the Brooklyn Museum. They’ve received fellowships from MacDowell, Lambda Literary Review, Macondo, and VONA. Their contributions are found in The New York Times, Asian American Literary Review, them., NYLON, Vogue, Buzzfeed, The Advocate, Frontier Poetry, The Rumpus, RaceForward, and more. Currently, they remix their mama’s recipes in Jersey City with their jowly dog. www.kaybarrett.net

Jaden Fields is an LA-based poet, cultural worker, and educator whose work centers the healing possibilities of marginalized communities. For the past few years, he has advocated in solidarity with queer, trans, and intersex communities. Jaden has facilitated healing-centered writing workshops for queer and trans writers. He has performed all over Los Angeles, including LA Pride, Long Beach Pride, Venice Pride, and DTLA Proudfest. Jaden self-published his first chapbook, Intentional Musings on Staying Alive When I Want To Die (2019), an honest depiction of navigating mental health and systemic oppression, and leaning into his own healing.

Kemi Alabi is the author of Against Heaven (Graywolf Press, 2022), selected by Claudia Rankine for the Academy of American Poets First Book Award. Their work also lives in several journals and anthologies, including The Atlantic, Boston Review, Poetry Magazine, Best New Poets 2019, and Redivider as winner of the 2020 Beacon Street Poetry Prize. Coeditor of The Echoing Ida Collection (Feminist Press, 2021), Alabi organizes narrative power campaigns and projects, most recently as cultural strategy director of Forward Together. They live in Chicago, IL. Find more at kemialabi.com.

Bani Amor is a gender/queer travel writer who explores the relationships between race, place, and power. A four-time VONA/Voices Fellow, their work has appeared in CNN Travel, Fodor’s, AFAR, and Teen Vogue, among other outlets, and in the anthology Outside the XY: Queer Black and Brown Masculinity. Follow them on Instagram at @baniamor and Twitter @bani_amor.