KRYSTAL LANGUELL, STEPHANIE ELLIS SCHLAIFER & EMILY SKILLINGS

Saturday, October 28th, 7pm, KCAI Crossroads Gallery: 
Center for Contemporary Practice (1819 Grand Blvd. KCMO) 
FREE!

Krystal LANGUELL lives in Chicago. She is the author of two books, Call the Catastrophists (BlazeVox, 2011) and Gray Market (1913 Press, 2016), and five chapbooks. A NYSCA/NYFA 2017 Artist Fellowship Finalist in Poetry, she previously completed a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council workspace residency in 2014-15 and a Poetry Project Emerge-Surface-Be fellowship in 2013-14. She was an adjunct in New York City for seven years.

Stephanie ELLIS SCHLAIFER is a poet and installation artist in St. Louis. She is the author of Cleavemark (BOAAT Press, 2016), a full-length collection of poems selected by Shane McCrae. Schlaifer has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and her poems and art have appeared in Best New Poets 2015, Georgia Review, Harvard Review, AGNI, The Offing, Denver Quarterly, LIT, Colorado Review, Fence, and elsewhere. She frequently collaborates with other artists, most recently with Cheryl Wassenaar on the installation Cleavemark Drive. Her work can be viewed at criticalbonnet.com.

Emily SKILLINGS is the author of the poetry collection Fort Not (The Song Cave, 2017) as well as two chapbooks, Backchannel (Poor Claudia) and Linnaeus: The 26 Sexual Practices of Plants (No, Dear/ Small Anchor Press). Recent poems can be found/are forthcoming in Poetry, Harper's, Boston Review, Brooklyn Rail, BOMB, Hyperallergic, LitHub, and jubilat. Skillings is a member of the Belladonna* Collaborative, a feminist poetry collective, small press, and event series. She received her MFA from Columbia University, where she was a Creative Writing Teaching Fellow in 2017. She splits her time between Brooklyn and Hudson, NY.

SOPHIE KLAHR, GLENN NORTH & MARK TARDI

Saturday, September 23rd, 7pm, KCAI Crossroads Gallery: 
Center for Contemporary Practice (1819 Grand Blvd. KCMO) 
FREE!

Sophie KLAHR’s first full-length collection, Meet Me Here at Dawn, was released by YesYes Books. Her work can be found in American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, Four Way Review, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. She has been on the editorial staff of Gigantic Sequins since 2009, where she currently co-edits Teen Sequins. Her interdisciplinary work includes dance, drama, and sculpture. Born in Pittsburgh, she now lives mostly in Los Angeles.

Glenn NORTH is the author of City of Song, a collection of poems inspired by Kansas City’s rich jazz tradition and the triumphs and tragedies of the African American experience. He is a Cave Canem fellow, a Callaloo creative writing fellow and a recipient of the Charlotte Street Generative Performing Artist Award and the Crystal Field Poetry Award. His work has appeared in Kansas City Voices, One Shot Deal, The Sixth Surface, Caper Literary Journal, Platte Valley Review, Kansas City Voices, KC Studio, Cave Canem Anthology XII, The African American Review, and American Studies Journal. He collaborated with legendary jazz musician, Bobby Watson, on the critically acclaimed recording project, Check Cashing Day and was recently appointed Poet Laureate of the 18th & Vine Historic Jazz District.

Mark TARDI is originally from Chicago and earned his MFA from Brown University. His previous books were Airport music (Burning Deck, 2013) and Euclid Shudders (Litmus Press, 2003). His newest book, The Circus of Trust, is recently out from Dalkey Archive Press. He guest-edited an issue of the literary journal Aufgabe devoted to contemporary Polish poetry and poetics and has translated poetry from the Polish by Kacper Bartczak, Miron Białoszewski, Monika Mosiewicz, and Przemysław Owczarek. He has received fellowships from the Djerassi Artist Colony, Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. Recent work has appeared in Jet Fuel Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, Sukoon, and diode. A former Fulbright scholar, he lives with his wife and two dogs in a village in central Poland and is on the faculty at the University of Łódź.