RSVP HERE!

Mic Check! Are you a writer? Come share your work at our next edition of our open mic, Mouth to Mouth. Curated and hosted by the magical Kay Ulanday Barrett and Jimena Lucero! This month we’re featuring lady wednesday and Saida Agostini.

Mouth to Mouth seeks to provide a safe community space for queer and trans BIPOC folx and and rising migrant artists. We seek to uplift these voices and ask all allies to step back & show your support by attending & cheering our performers on.

**To sign up for the open mic, please e-mail events@aaww.org. Performers will be selected by lottery shortly before the event.

// NOTE ON ACCESSIBILITY//

This event will be captioned with ASL Interpretation by Pro Bono ASL.

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 been 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.

JIMENA LUCERO is a poet, actor, & cultural worker. Her short film Silver Femme screened at the 59th Ann Arbor Film festival, Outfest Fusion, Inside Out, and NewFest Film Festival. She was a 2019-2020 Emerge-Surface-Be fellow at the Poetry Project. Her writing appears in Zoeglossia, The Recluse, Nightboat’s Echo, and more. Jimena’s work is rooted in trans liberation, disability justice, and future building.

LADY WEDNESDAY is a name for noor; she’s a poet and resident of Cedar Park, West Philly in Lenapehoking. she favors language with “exquisite mouthfeel.” our poems have been published in collaboration with online and print publications such as PLEIADES, DIAGRAM, and MUZZLE. please keep up with our creative work and processes at patreon.com/lady_wednesday.

SAIDA AGOSTINI is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet whose work explores the ways Black folks harness mythology to enter the fantastic. Her work is featured in Plume, Hobart Pulp, Barrelhouse, Auburn Avenue, amongst others. Saida’s work can be found in several anthologies, including Not Without Our Laughter: Poems of Humor, Sexuality and Joy, The Future of Black, and Plume Poetry 9. She is the author of STUNT (Neon Hemlock, October 2020), a chapbook reimagining the life of Nellie Jackson, a Black madam and FBI spy from Natchez Mississippi. Her first full length collection, let the dead in, a finalist for the 2020 New Issues Poetry Prize and the Center for African American Arts & Poetics Poetry Prize, will be released by Alan Squire Publishing in Spring 2022. A Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, and member of the Black Ladies Brunch Collective, Saida is a two time Pushcart Prize Nominee and Best of the Net Finalist. Her work has received support from the Ruby Artist Grants, and the Blue Mountain Center, amongst others. She lives online at www.saidaagostini.com.