t'ai freedom ford & Stephanie Gray - May 9th, 2016

Monday Reading Series t’ai freedom ford is a New York City high school English teacher, Cave Canem Fellow, and Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Drunken Boat, Tupelo Quarterly, Winter Tangerine, The African American Review, Vinyl, Muzzle, Poetry and others. Her work has also been featured in several anthologies including The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. In 2014, she was the winner of The Feminist Wire’s inaugural poetry contest judged by Evie Shockley. She is currently a 2015 Center for Fiction Fellow and the winner of the 2015 To the Lighthouse Poetry Prize. Her first poetry collection, how to get over is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. t’ai lives and loves in Brooklyn, but hangs out digitally at: shesaidword.com. NYC-based poet-filmmaker Stephanie Gray is the author of Shorthand and Electric Language Stars and I Thought You Said It Was Sound/How Does That Sound? (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs 2015, 2012); Place your orders now! (Belladonna*, 2014); A Country Road Going Back in Your Direction (Argos Books, 2015); and Heart Stoner Bingo (Straw Gate Books, 2007). Her super 8 films have screened internationally and she often reads live with her films. Shorthand and Electric Language Stars was selected as a finalist for a 2016 Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry.