Events › Another World is Already Poem-ing — Arts Workshop and Poetry Reading

Another World is Already Poem-ing is part poetry reading, part creative activity workshop, and part open mic with poets Blue Nguyen, JR Mahung, and mica rose. The artists will offer a series of workshops and activities prompting reflection on global liberation movements, past and present, to imagine what revolution means for participants. Activities will lead to expression through collage, movement, creative writing, and a share out portion as well.

Workshops will be followed by a poetry reading and Q&A with mica, JR, and Blue focused on each artist's engagement with archives that speak to liberation movements historic and present. Registration is recommended. Drop-ins welcome!

1:00 - 1:20 pm: Arrive and connect with other attendees

1:20 - 2:00 pm: Creative activities and art-making workshops led by mica, JR, and Blue

2:00 - 2:10 pm: Intermission I

2:10 - 2:50 pm: Activities resume

2:50 - 3:00 pm: Intermission II

3:00 - 4:00 pm: Poetry Reading and Q&A with artists

This program is generously funded by the Howard Cooper LGBTQ+ Endowment Fund. 

Programming at the Boston Public Library is funded through private support. To learn more about supporting the Library, please visit the Boston Public Library Fund's website

About the Artists

Blue Nguyen is a Vietnamese non-binary lesbian poet, artist, and organizer. Inspired by cartography and traditional symbolism in Viet architecture and culture–they research the architecture of grief, giving thanks, and livelihood. They work with poetic syntax, oral history, Vietnamese traditional woodworking, textile, and fiber techniques using organic materials. Their artistic journey began with poetry as a translation on grief, an act of prayer. Now as they research using materials off the page, their work questions what can a poem be made of– prayer as poetics, poetics as prayer. Material as an altar. Nominated for Best of the Net Anthology and Best New Poets Anthology, their 1st book Hey Siri, What Time is it in Vietnam? is forthcoming with GameOverBooks. You can find more of their work on bluenguyen.com.

JR Mahung (She/They) is a Garifuna trans girl from the South Side of Chicago. She has received grants and Fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Fine Arts Work Center, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst where they received their MFA in Creative Writing. She and her cat Frank Ocean are now based in Boston where JR has served on the organizing team for the Louder than a Bomb MA youth poetry slam festival, co-organized The Plantain Collection, a poetry reading and conversation series for writers of diaspora, and co-coached the Northeastern University Poetry Slam Team. JR has facilitated creative writing workshops and classes for the Amherst College Creative Writing Department, City Year Boston, Andover Breadloaf, and the Crisis Text Line. She was the 2017 Individual World Poetry Slam Representative for the Boston Poetry Slam. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Winter Tangerine, Moko Literary Magazine, WusGood, Freezeray Literary Journal, Drunk in a Midnight Choir, When Language Broke Open: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Black Writers of Latin American Descent, poets.org, wildness literary journal, Nat Brut and elsewhere. JR’s second chapbook Since When He Have Wings is available through Pizza Pi Press.

mica rose is a gemini gust of slumber-party who trains in ancestral medicines. Their teachers include lola Nellie & Laguna, manong Wayne & pangalay, Márquez Rhyne & story circles, and taiko with sensei Karen Young. Chosen and blood families shape mica's commitment to international solidarity. They are a member of Liyang Network: a local to global advocacy network amplifying calls to action of grassroots communities in the Philippines. Living between Boston and their maternal home in the Philippines, they organize with masses for land, water, and self determination. Currently a co-director at Arts Connect International, they resource artists towards collective action. Find mica on Instagram: @micaxrose.