Kush Thompson

Author of A Church Beneath the Bulldozer (New School Poetics, 2014), Kush Thompson (she/her) is a Chicago-born poet, painter, and educator. She creates archival art, often centering on girlhood and the mechanics of memory. Her work has been published in Poetry magazine, The Chicago Reader, and The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (Haymarket Books, 2015).

For several years, Kush served as an educator with Young Chicago Authors’ Teaching Artist Corps, debuting her portraiture series, Blk Hottie, in 2016. Voted runner-up best local poet of 2014 by The Chicago Reader and a 2015 Young Futurist by The Root, Thompson has performed and facilitated creative writing workshops both nationally and internationally. She is a Luminarts, Pink Door, and Cave Canem fellow.

As an organizer, Kush cocurated The Lady Church, a series of monthly workshops and annual showcases for women and femmes, and briefly served as organizing and chapter cochair of Black Youth Project 100 Chicago.