Black Heritage Trail of NH and Seacoast Outright partner for poetry event
PORTSMOUTH — The Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire presents its third annual Black Matter is Life Poetry Series. This series, which is comprised of four events in November, December, and January, begins with a special program with Seacoast Outright. This is the first partnership between these two organizations.
This first event on Thursday, Nov. 10 at 7 p.m., will be in person at the Players’ Ring Theatre, 105 Marcy St., Portsmouth. The following three events on Nov. 17, Dec. 15, and Jan. 19 will be held virtually.
The first event, titled “We Go On Loving,” will explore the poems of four Black LGBTQ+ poets. The evening will include host Courtney Marshall, professor of English at Phillips Exeter Academy, and two student poets, Ki Odums and Lydia Osei.
The guest poet for this event is John-Francis Quiñonez (Q). Q is a current resident of Providence, Rhode Island, a writer and multimedia artist, the current resident of the Queer.Archive.Work. project and will soon publish a new collection of poems, “Keep Your Little Lights Alive (Poems After Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love and Others)." You can find their work in Pigeon Pages, Ours Poetica, Voicemail Poems, Slamfind, Counterclock, Maps for Teeth, Drunk in a Midnight Choir and as part of a playing card deck with Game Over Books.
The Black Matter is Life Poetry Series is designed to build bridges across the racial divide by introducing the audience to the writings of a number of African American poets whose work has shone a light on a rich cultural heritage that has often gone unexplored. The series asks audience members to consider how African American poetry provides tools for healing our nation’s deep racial wounds, the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire said in a release.
For more information on the series, including poems to be discussed and registration, visit https://blackheritagetrailnh.org/the-black-matter-is-life-poetry-event/ or call 603-570-8469, or send an email to info@blackheritagetrailnh.org.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Black Heritage Trail of NH and Seacoast Outright partner for poetry event
