Open Door Series: Ed Roberson & avery r. young

The Open Door Reading series presents work from Chicago’s new and emerging poets and highlights the area’s outstanding writing programs. Each monthly hour-long event features readings by two Chicagoland writing program instructors and some of their current or recent students. November's Open Door Reading presents Ed Roberson and his student Jacob Saenz, and avery r. young and his student Nile Lansana.

Ed Roberson is the author of numerous books of poetry, including To See the Earth Before the End of the World (2010), which was a runner up for the Los Angeles Times Poetry Award. His honors include the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2016, the Lila Wallace Writers’ Award, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Award, and the 2016 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. His work has been included in Best American Poetry.

Best known as a poet, songwriter, and performer, multi-disciplinary artist avery r. young is also an award-winning teaching artist who mentors youths in the crafts of creative writing and theater. His album booker t. soltreyne: a race rekkid combines his poetry and sound design to discuss matters of race, gender, and sexuality in America during the Obama Era.

Jacob Saenz is the author of Throwing the Crown, winner of the 2018 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, selected by Gregory Pardlo. His work has appeared in PANK, Poetry, Tammy, and other journals. A graduate of Columbia College Chicago, Saenz has received a Letras Latinas Residency as well a CantoMundo and a Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship. He serves as an associate editor for RHINO.

Nile Lansana is a poet from the South Side of Chicago. He is the recipient of the 2018 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award. His work has been published in The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, Resisting Arrest: Poems to Stretch the Sky, The End Of Chiraq: A Literary Mixtape, Southside Weekly & elsewhere. He currently attends the University of Wisconsin - Madison through the First Wave Scholarship, majoring in Journalism and Creative Writing. A member of Uprise Poetry Collective, he was on the first team to compete at CUPSI in 2018. He is a founding member and coach with the award winning Rebirth Poetry Ensemble, who have been finalists in ½ Pint Poetics, Louder Than A Bomb, and Brave New Voices.