Poetry off the Shelf: Third Man Books featuring Rachel Bell, Larry O. Dean, S. Whitney Holmes, Janaka Stucky & Ken Vandermark
61 West Superior Street
Free Admission
Rachel Bell is a poet living in Chicago. Her first book, a collection of poetry, chat excerpts, and collage was published in Zurich in February 2014. Her work has been featured on VICE, Internet Poetry, and a popular commercial newsletter covering the alcoholic beverage industry, but she hated that job.
Larry O. Dean was born and raised in Flint, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan, where he won three Hopwood Awards in Creative Writing, and Murray State University's low-residency MFA program. His most recent books include Brief Nudity (Salmon Poetry, 2013), Basic Cable Couplets (Silkworms Ink, 2012), abbrev (Beard of Bees, 2011), and About the Author (Mindmade Books, 2011). He was a 2004 recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Award.
S. Whitney Holmes is the author of Room Where I Get What I Want (Black Ocean, 2015) and of the chapbook Method of Loci (dancing girl press, 2013). She acts as executive director for the feminist press Switchback Books and is also an editor for The Offending Adam. She was born and raised in West Virginia, earned her M.F.A. from the University of Alabama, and currently lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. Her poems have appeared in Gulf Coast, Poetry Northwest, Barrelhouse, and others.
Janaka Stucky is the author of The Truth Is We Are Perfect and the publisher of Black Ocean as well as the annual poetry journal, Handsome. He is also the author of two chapbooks: Your Name Is The Only Freedom and The World Will Deny It For You. His poems have appeared in such journals as Denver Quarterly, Fence and North American Review, and his articles have been published by The Huffington Post and The Poetry Foundation. He is a two-time National Haiku Champion and in 2010 was voted “Boston’s Best Poet” in the Boston Phoenix.
Chicago Jazz legend Ken Vandermark began studying the tenor saxophone at the age of 16. Since moving to Chicago from Boston in 1989, Vandermark has worked as a performer and organizer in North America and Europe, recording with many internationally renowned musicians. He currently works with Made To Break, Audio One, Lean Left, the Chicago Reed Quartet, Side A, Fire Room, the DKV Trio, and duos with Paal Nilssen-Love and Tim Daisy. Vandermark was a 1999 MacArthur Fellow and served as the “Artist in Residence” for the Chicago Jazz Festival in 2012.
Presented in partnership with Third Man Books
