Tonight, Friday May 14, several students of mine from the Dzanc Writer-in-Residence Program at Ann Arbor Open School will be featured performers at LITERAMA, a dynamic poetry event sponsored by the Ann Arbor Book Festival. Seven fifth- and sixth-grade students from Ann Arbor Open will open a show that also includes nationally renowned, award-winning poets Aracelis Girmay and Rachel McKibbens.

I am excited about this show for many reasons, but mostly for the young poets who will be kicking things off. Their poems are imaginative and intense. They are deeper and more inventive than people often expect from elementary school students, and I can't wait to see them wow the crowd.

They say things like: "Why is a dove released from its cart, Only to be captured again? And why does a heart feel the same way?"

They say things like: "I know it's a dream because I'm eating a monkey."

They say things like: "so sad, so empty, if you screamed in me it would echo."

I mean, I can't do them any justice with soundbites, and the poems they're reading tonight are a lot better and fuller than this. Trust me when I tell that it's worth your time to come out at 7pm tonight and see them. And then stick around for the rest of the show, which promises to be outstanding as well.

Here are the full details of the event from the press release:

The Ann Arbor Book Festival is proud to present an evening full of poetry and the presentation of the annual "LILA Award", or Leader in the Literary Arts. This year, the award is going to two leaders in the community, the Family Book Club, and Nicola Rooney, owner of Nicola's Books. This evening will feature poetry from children at the outset and then will venture into edgier territory later with nationally renowned adult poets and electric high school and college poets participating in an inter-generational poetry slam. Come out and see some of the hottest young poets in the area and enjoy these great performances!

Featured poets =

Students from Ann Arbor Open participating in the Dzanc Writers in the Schools Program!

Scott Beal, local poet/educator and author of the chapbook Two Shakespearean Madwomen Vs. the Detroit Red Wings from White Eagle Coffee Store Press (1999).

Aracelis Girmay is the author of Teeth, a collection of poems published by Curbstone Press in 2007. Her poems have also been published in Ploughshares, Bellevue Literary Review, Indiana Review, Callaloo, and MiPOesias, among other journals. Her collage-based picture book, Changing, Changing: Story and Collages, was published by George Braziller in 2005. She has been a featured reader at the Udi Aloni Project Room, Studio Museum in Harlem, Bowery Poetry Club, & prisons in Trenton & Manhattan. A Cave Canem fellow, Girmay teaches writing workshops in New York & California.

Rachel McKibbens was born in Anaheim, CA. Her poetry collection Pink Elephant recently debuted through Cypherbooks and she is a member and co-founder of the Right Coast Writers Brigade. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including World Literature Today, The New York Quarterly and Bowery Women: Poems. Among other honors, she is a New York Foundation of the Arts Poetry Fellow, a Pushcart nominee, and the 2009 Women's Individual World Poetry Slam champion. She has read her work at universities, schools, galleries and various other venues across the nation. She teaches poetry and creative writing across the country at all levels. An ex-punk rock chola with five children, she lives in upstate New York with writer Jacob Rakovan and four of their children.

Intergenerational Poetry Slam = Check out these teams!

1 - Yaoyao Liu, Carlina Duan, Mike Moriarty, James Robert 2 - Clare Riesterer, Allison Kennedy, Maggie Hanks, Scott Beal 3 - Haley Patail, Isaiah Peet-Blakeney, Gahl Liberzon, Quinn Stossel 4 - Mia Ruf, Allison Punch, Sierra Hansen, Sarah Andrew-Vaughan

This is gonna be nuts!!!

7pm @ the Neutral Zone on Friday 5/14! Only $5! Don't miss out!!!