With Bettina Judd, Helen K. Thomas and Jourdan Imani Keith
Monday, February 18, 7 p.m.
Jack Straw Cultural Center
4261 Roosevelt Way NE,
Seattle, WA 98105
Free
I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.
-Audre Lorde
Speak to Me! is an intergenerational reading series showcasing poets and writers curated, hosted and moderated by Anastacia-Renee, Seattle Civic Poet (Seattle Office of Arts & Culture). This special installment of the series celebrates the birth, life, and work of Audre Lorde.
Featuring:
Bettina Judd is an interdisciplinary writer, artist and performer whose research focus is on Black women’s creative production and our use of visual art, literature, and music to develop feminist thought. Her current book manuscript argues that Black women’s creative production is feminist knowledge production produced by registers of affect she calls “feelin.” She is currently Assistant Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. She has received fellowships from the Five Colleges, The Vermont Studio Center and the University of Maryland. Her poems and essays have appeared in Torch, Mythium, Meridians and other journals and anthologies. Her collection of poems titled patient. which tackles the history of medical experimentation on and display of Black women won the Black Lawrence Press Hudson Book Prize and was released in November of 2014. As a performer she has been invited to perform for audiences within the United States and internationally. Find out more information about Bettina at www.bettinajudd.com.
Helen K. Thomas is a native of Seattle, WA by way of Lagos, Nigeria. She writes Young Adult fiction about black girls surviving, thriving and trying to figure it all out in the Pacific Northwest.
Jourdan Imani Keith is a poet, essayist, playwright, naturalist and activist. Her TEDx Talk, “Your Body of Water,” the theme for King County’s 2016-2018 Poetry on Buses program, won a 2018 Americans for the Arts Public Art award. Keith’s Orion Magazine essays, “Desegregating Wilderness” and ” At Risk” were selected for the 2015 Best American Science and Nature Writing Anthology (Houghton Mifflin). Her ekphrastic poems and stories were commissioned by the Northwest African American Museum to be featured as over-sized text on its walls during the Glass Orchidarium exhibit and her creation myth, ” We Were All Water,” was commissioned by Seattle Art Museum for a featured performance at the REMIX . A keeper of culture and history in the Griot (gree-oh) storytelling tradition, she has been awarded fellowships from Hedgebrook, Wildbranch, Santa Fe Science Writing workshop, VONA, and Jack Straw. She’s received multiple commissions and awards from University of Washington, Artist Trust, 4Culture and the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. Her memoir in essays, Tugging at the Web is forthcoming from University of Washington Press.
*Speak to Me! is an intergenerational reading series showcasing poets and writers curated, hosted and moderated by Anastacia-Renee, Seattle Civic Poet (Seattle Office of Arts & Culture).
