AMARI AMAI
Amari Amai is a Black transmasculine storyteller and worldbuilder born and raised in Chicago. As a Great Migration baby with roots in Jackson, Mississippi, Amari’s work is rooted in oral tradition and ancestral embodiment on and off the page, using poetry, folklore, soundscapes, and performance to bend time and immortalize the lives of the disappeared and forgotten. Their work has received support and fellowships from Tin House, Periplus Collective, Sundress Academy for the Arts, Hyde Park Art Center, The Watering Hole, Vermont Studio Center, and Earthseed Black Family Archive Project. Amari is the founder of Crossroads Writers Collective, a communal writing group for Black queer folks based in Chicago. As a 2025 Pushcart Prize and 2026 Best of the Net Nominee, they are currently at work on their debut poetry collection with an accompanying series of performances. Find out more at amariamai.com
MUSU BANGURA
Musu Bangura is an artist originally from Washington, D.C. and currently residing in Chicago, Illinois. They are the author of the essay-book “…Considers Lil’ Kim’s Hard Core.” Their work has been published in New Delta Review, Apogee Journal, BRINK Literary, Southeast Review, and more. In 2020, they were selected as a 2020 Best of the Net Poetry finalist. Musu has served as a judge for three years at Poetry Out Loud’s City and Metro Regionals. Musu believes everyone is a poet and is forever indebted to the legacy of queer Black writers.
ALYX CHANDLER
Alyx Chandler (she/her) is a writer from the South who received her MFA in poetry at the University of Montana, where she was a Richard Hugo Fellow and taught poetry. In 2025, she won the Three Sisters Award in Poetry with Nelle Literary Journal, received a Creative Catalyst grant from the Illinois Arts Council, and attended residencies at Ragdale and Taleamor Park. She works as a poet-in-residence for the Chicago Poetry Center, as well as a remote workshop facilitator for Free Verse Writing Project, which hosts workshops for Montana children who are incarcerated or in youth homes. Her poetry can be found in the Southern Poetry Anthology, North American Review, EPOCH, Greensboro Review, SWWIM, and elsewhere at alyxchandler.com.
LARRY DEAN
Larry O. Dean was born and raised in Flint, Michigan. His numerous books include Frequently Asked Questions (forthcoming), I Am Spam (2024), Muse, Um (2022), Activities of Daily Living (2017), Brief Nudity (2013), Basic Cable Couplets (2012), Abbrev (2011), and About the Author (2011). He is also an acclaimed singer-songwriter whose latest solo album is Good Grief (2015); his band, The Injured Parties, has a new album, Mutually Assured Distraction, due in 2026. For more info, go to larryodean.com.
TERESA DZIEGLEWICZ
Teresa Dzieglewicz is a poet, educator, and lover of rivers. She is a Poet-in-Residence with Chicago Poetry Center, part of the founding team of Mni Wichoni Nakicizin Wounspe (Defenders of the Water School) on Standing Rock Reservation, and an Associate Editor with RHINO Poetry Journal. She also volunteers with several Chicago River restoration projects. Her first book, Something Small of How to See a River, was selected by Tyehimba Jess for Tupelo Press’s Dorset Prize and is forthcoming in 2023. Her first children’s book, co-written with Kimimila Locke, is forthcoming in 2025 from Chronicle Books. She has won a Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, the Palette Poetry Prize, the Jake Adam York Auburn Witness Prize, and the Gingko Prize for Ecopoetry. Her work has been supported with fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Community of Writers at Tahoe, Brooklyn Poets, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and NY Mills Arts Retreat. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Georgia Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, Pleiades, and elsewhere.
OLA FALETI
Ola Faleti is an artist and arts educator raised & based in Chicago. Her writing has appeared in Pearl Press, TriQuarterly, The Chicago Reader, Interim, Jet Fuel Review, and elsewhere. The curriculum for Ola’s workshop with 826CHI, “Poets in Revolt!” was distributed nationally and birthed an anthology of youth writing. Her favorite number is nine, and she believes there’s no such thing as too many flowers. Keep up with her at www.olafaleti.com.
CHASITY GUNN 
Chasity Gunn is a 2023 Watering Hole alumna, a 2022 Wild Seeds Fellow, and a 2021 Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellow. She serves as a Poetry Teaching Resident with Prison+Neighborhood Arts Project. She has forthcoming publications in Killens Review and African American Review.
ALONDRA JARA
Alondra Jara (she/ella) is a queer multidisciplinary artist, organizer, and educator based in McKinley Park. Born in Indianapolis to Mexican parents who immigrated from Zacatecas and Jalisco, her work often weaves together themes of land, play, magic, and community. She has collaborated with movement groups and projects such as Movimiento Cosecha, Unity Center Migrant Support, the #LetUsBreathe Collective, and others. Deeply committed to expanding access to arts education, she approaches teaching as a non-hierarchical, reciprocal process rooted in growth and curiosity. Her community organizing informs much of her creative practice, where art becomes a tool for storytelling, connection, and collective resistance.
JOSIE LEVIN
Josie Levin is a writer and artist living and working in Chicago. Josie’s work has appeared in a variety of exhibitions and publications including recent and upcoming work in Scarlet, Mud Season Review and carte blanche. Josie is currently an Advance Reader at Lit Fox Books and Artist-In-Residence at The Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble.
TARA LEVY
Tara Levy is a multidisciplinary artist, author and educator from the west side of Chicago. For nine years, she has served in the education sector as a high school English teacher, academic advisor, and community engagement coordinator. In July 2023, Tara founded the Liberated Arts Movement, an arts and wellness organization dedicated to promoting communal care, and cultural expression. As a visual artist, Tara has been featured in and curated over 15 solo and group exhibitions, and her work has been supported by the Chicago Creatives for Justice Fellowship, the Artists Run Chicago Grant, and the Oak Park Area Arts Council. Tara currently serves as Arts & Letters Chair for the Glen Ellyn Area Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.
MAYA ODIM
Maya is a poet who thinks deeply about the ways writing and movement are connected, and about the ways words move, can be moved and carry meaning. Maya received honorable mention in the 2024 Ruth Weiss Foundation Poetry Competition, has self published two chapbooks: Planets, Gourds, and Traveling Staffs (2011) & Places Where We Can imagine (2014), and been published in the Performance Response Journal, F News Magazine and the Chicago DanceMakers Forum Blog, and for multiple years has been honored to be a reader for the Gwendolyn Brooks Youth Poetry Awards. Maya received a Chicago Performance Lab residency summer 2025 and along with working as a Poet, is a lecturer in English at Roosevelt University & Theater and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago. If the music is right, you’ll catch Maya in the cypher (with a pen, in tennis shoes or barefoot).
MADISON MAE PARKER
Madison Mae Parker (they/she) is a word witch, writer, performer, ritual artist, arts doula, somatic educator, and space-maker. Voted as best poet in Kansas City, Missouri in 2022 by The Pitch Magazine, she finds deep belonging in the stretching of language through poetry and questioning where a poem might long to live. Having toured and taught internationally with her poetry in the US, Europe, Singapore, and Australia, she feels most at ease while performing and facilitating rituals and conversations around the things that make us human. In addition to holding an MFA in Performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2024), they hold an expressive arts therapy certification through the Tamalpa Institute (2023). Their absolute favorite way to be in the world is helping fellow artists discover their own creative intuition through 1:1 explorations as an Arts Doula and crafting customized rituals. Alongside their work at the Chicago Poetry Center as a poet-in-residence, they teach somatic classes with Khecari, work in various art administrative roles for different organizations, and lead a reading and movement class called Movement Philosophy. When they are not art-ing, you can find her watching cartoons and eating Hot Cheetos with her cats MeowZaki and Magic Conch Shell. She can be found on the internet at www.MadisonMaeParker.com.
C. RUSSELL PRICE
C. Russell Price is the author of oh, you thought this was a date?!: Apocalypse Poems, Tonight, We Fuck the Trailer Park Out of Each Other and the forthcoming collection Bisquick: An American Seance out August 2026 from Northwestern University Press. They are a Poet in Residence at the Chicago Poetry Center and work with the Anarchist Review of Books. They are a Lambda Fellow, Ragdale Fellow, and two-time Lit 50 honoree. Price landscapes in Chicago.
NOEL QUIÑONES
Noel Quiñones is an Emmy award-winning Nuyorican writer, educator, and speaker from the Bronx. Noel’s work has appeared in POETRY, Boston Review, Poem-a-Day, The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNEXT Anthology, and Michigan Quarterly Review, winning their 2025 Jesmyn Ward Fiction Prize. They have received fellowships from Vermont Studio Center, Tin House & Lambda Literary and performed & taught workshops at 100+ K-12 schools & colleges across the country. Noel is a trained Critical Service Learning practitioner, certified Restorative Justice facilitator, and bittersweet high school English Lit teacher having worked in schools for over 10 years, in 4 different states. They are a graduate of the University of Mississippi M.F.A. program, the Watering Hole & CantoMundo and currently teach writing at Odessa College & the Chicago Poetry Center. Noel is beyond hype for their debut poetry collection, Orange, forthcoming in 2026 with CavanKerry Press, and so proud to have started in spoken word poetry.
LESLIE REESE
Leslie Reese has 25+ years experience as a Teaching Artist. She earned a BA from Alabama A & M University and a MA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Columbia College. In addition to authoring the poetry collections, Upside Down Tapestry Mosaic History, and Urban Junkstar, Leslie has collaborated with dancers, musicians, and visual artists; and is the founder of folklore & literacy, which uses books and the arts as gateways to literacy, discovery, and self-expression. Leslie has served as an Arts Curriculum Consultant for Hope for Flowers Arts Enrichment Program, a Kresge Arts Literary Panelist, a Recitation Judge for Poetry Out Loud, and Poetry Teaching Artist/Consultant for the Gloster Arts Project. Since 2019 Leslie has been a Chicago Poetry Center poet-in-residence, a role she first practiced with InsideOut Literary Arts Project, and Broadside’s Poet-in-Residence Program in Detroit Public Libraries. Leslie is a production partner & feature of CPC’s educational video poetry series, ”Queen Zee’s Poetic Adventures” and is a 2025 recipient of CPC’s Gwendolyn Brooks Award for Excellence in Teaching.
TIMOTHY DAVID REY
Timothy David Rey is a writer/ performer who works in poetry, plays, and monologue (both fictional and autobiographical). He teaches creative writing and performance throughout the city of Chicago and suburbs. He is a 2015 Semi-Finalist for the Guild Literary Complex’s Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Award, and one of the winners of Project Exploration (The Poetry Center of Chicago 2004). He is the co-founder of the LBGT Solo Performance Showcase, Solo Homo (2002-2011). Timothy’s plays and performances pieces have been seen and heard at venues throughout Chicago as well as out of state and in Panama. Timothy’s writing has appeared in magazines and journals including ‘60 Inches From Center,’ and ‘After Hours: The Chicago Journal of Writing & Art.’ His book of poetry and performance, Little Victories, was published in 2012 by NewTown Writers Press. Timothy has performed at Steppenwolf Theater (Lookout Series), New York City’s International Fringe Festival as well as The Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts.
CAI SHERLEY
Cai Sherley (he/him) is a poet-educator with roots in Boston, MA. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, you can find his work in Best New Poets 2022, swamp pink, Peach Mag, and My Loves: A Digital Anthology of Queer Love Poems from Ghost City Press. He is passionate about writing Black trans-masculine lives past & present and has found homes at The Watering Hole, Brooklyn Poets, Tin House, and LAMBDA. As an educator, Cai has worked at the K-12 and college levels, including with the children of incarcerated adults and queer youth. He has developed and facilitated poetry workshops with schools & organizations across the East Coast and provides professional development for educators looking to use poetry in science and history curricula. Cai holds an MFA from New York University, is a member of the Crossroads Writers Collective, and is a stepdad to two sphynxes.
LUIS TUBENS
Luis Tubens, a.k.a “Logan Lu”, was born in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood and raised in Logan Square. In 2014, he earned a B.A. in Communications, media and theater from Northeastern Illinois University. He is the 2017 Artists in Residence at Oak Park Public Library. Luis has performed poetry across the United States including with the GUILD COMPLEX, Tia Chucha Press, and the National Museum of Mexican Art. He has toured Mexico City in 2016 and 2018 presenting his work at the acclaimed “Show Socrates MX” (2016) and the National Book Fair of Leon GTO (2018) and featured in Puerto Rico at “Poets Passage” and “Gathering of Cities” at Libros AC (2019). He has also held workshops for the residents of the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center and students in the Chicago Public Schools. On stage, he has opened for notable acts including Saul Williams and Calle 13. He is the author of Stone Eagle (2017) published by Bobbin Lace Press, Chicago. Currently, Luis is the resident poet for ESSO Afrojam Funkbeat (2016 Best New Band and Best International Music Act, Chicago Reader) and represented Chicago in the 2014 and 2018 National Poetry Slam.
MAYDA DEL VALLE
Mayda del Valle was born and raised on the Southside of Chicago. She is the author of The University of Hip Hop and a winner of the 2016 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize from Northwestern University Press. Her full-length collection, A South Side Girl’s Guide to Love and Sex, was published on Tia Chucha press. She appeared on six episodes of the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, and was a contributing writer and original cast member of the Tony Award winning Def Poetry Jam on Broadway. She began her artistic career at the Nuyorican Poets Café, where she was the 2001 Grand Slam Champion, and went on to become the National Poetry Slam Champion in the same year. She was the youngest poet, and the first Latinx person to do so. She has appeared in Urban Latino, Latina Magazine, Mass Appeal, The Source, The New York Times and was named by Smithsonian Magazine as one of America’s Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences. Oprah’s “O” Magazine selected her as one of 20 women for the first ever “O Power List”, a group of visionary women making a mark in business, politics, and the arts. She has performed at venues across the world, including the White House in May of 2009, by invitation of President Obama and the First Lady.
JOY YOUNG
Joy Young is a Chicago-born storyteller and teaching artist. Her prose and poetry has appeared in Poetry East, Lunch Ticket, Black Warrior Review, and Portable Gray. She is currently a Poet in Residence and Board Member for the Chicago Poetry Center. She is also the Chicagoland Regionals Coordinator for the Poetry Out Loud Teen Recitation Competition. When she’s not teaching, you can usually find her at open mics and performance arts venues.
