George B Bailey

George B. Bailey (he/him) is an associate professor of English, emeritus, in the English department of Columbia College Chicago. He earned a BA in creative writing from Columbia College Chicago, an MA in English from DePaul University, and a PhD from the University of Illinois Chicago. 

Bailey is the author of the short story collection Haunted Exiles Back Up on the End (self-published, 2011). His choreopoem, “For the Thirteen,” was adapted by Zebra Crossing and performed at the Theater Building in Chicago. His short fiction and articles have been published in Chicago Works: A New Collection of Chicago Authors’ Best Stories (Morton Press, 2003), New Chicago Stories (City Stoop Press, 1990), West Side Stories (City Stoop Press, 1992), the Chicago Sun-Times, Fra Noi, Newcity, and The Chicago Journal. 

According to Bailey, his poetry explores societal disinvestments in spheres of diminishing humane best practices and argues for celebratory reboots and re-humanization of the human spirit. He works to observe and describe the intentional dehumanizing strictures created and reinforced by profit-motivated cultures, the “conquest” of the American West as an example, with particular attention to Black life in the United States.

Bailey has played in jazz bands and promoted partnerships between school cultures. He delights in staging reenactments in the life of a 9th United States Cavalry corporal to explore the Reconstruction period and the American westward expansion movement.