Poetry in the Park

Beginning at the historic St Paul's UMC Church, where movement organizing took place, participants will walk through the Historic Civil Rights District and listen to poets share their work addressing civil rights and social justice at a selection of historic sites.

No registration required.

Kwoya Fagin Maples is a writer from Charleston, S.C. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and is a graduate Cave Canem Fellow.  Maples is a current Alabama State Council on the Arts Literary Fellow.  She is the author of Mend (University Press of Kentucky, 2018) a finalist for the 2019 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry and finalist for the 2019 Housatonic Poetry award. In addition to a chapbook publication by Finishing Line Press entitled Something of Yours (2010) her work is published in several journals and anthologies including Blackbird Literary Journal, Obsidian, The Langston Hughes Review, Berkeley Poetry Review, The African-American Review, Pluck!, Tin House Review Online and Cave Canem Anthology XIII.  Mend tells the story of the birth of obstetrics and gynecology in America and the role black enslaved women played in that process. This work received a grant from the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. Prior to publication, Mend was also the 2017 finalist for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs’ Donald Hall Prize for Poetry.

Maples is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing in the MFA program for Creative Writing at the University of Alabama, home of the Black Warrior Review.

Elizabeth Hughey is the author of White Bull (Sarabande Books), Sunday Houses the Sunday House (University of Iowa Press), and Guest Host (The National Poetry Review Press). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Alabama Council on the Arts. Elizabeth is the co-founder and Programming Director of the Desert Island Supply Co. (DISCO), a literary arts center in Birmingham, Alabama, where she teaches poetry in the public schools.

Caleb Calhoun is an author, poet and journalist who lives in Birmingham, AL. They are the host of Ferus Ale’s monthly spoken word event, Untethered, as well as on the Citizen Committee for Alabama’s longest running poetry event, Bards and Brews. They are a member of the critically acclaimed Nashville based prog band Motion and Matter, are a founding member of the Asheville (NC) Slam Poetry Team and are the creator of Get On The Bus, a longform project whose iterations have blended elements of journalism, poetry, story-telling and satire. In addition to their poetic work Caleb has been published more than 400 times as a journalist and has interviewed some of the leading creators of our time. They have performed their spoken word at venues and festivals across the southeast and they recorded their debut album (available on all streaming services) Looks Like We Made It… better keep moving at Southern Ground Studio in Nashville, TN last fall. They are looking forward to representing Birmingham as they tour this spring and to heading back to Southern Ground in November to record their follow-up record.

Maati Sanovia Haleemah Muhammad is a committed yogini, community activist, performing poet and passionate speaker. She is the founder of Ka Vibrations Yoga, offering Goddess workshops, retreats and certifications. More about her writing and cultural work at www.maatisanovia.com.