Brian G. Gilmore, public interest lawyer and poet, to speak February 15
“It was beginning winter,
The light moved slowly over the frozen field,”
– Theodore Roethke, “The Lost Son”
While we aren’t in “beginning winter” here in Saginaw, we are currently living in the frozen field. But the light continues moving, however slowly, and no matter the weather we’ve got another great event for you to look forward to in the month of February.
On February 15 at 7:00 p.m. via Zoom, we’ll continue part one of our Speaker Series focused on place and landscape with Dr. Brian G. Gilmore’s event, A Letter to John A. Williams. We hope to see you there!
About Brian G. Gilmore
Brian G. Gilmore is a Senior Lecturer in the Law and Society Program (MLAW) at University of Maryland, a public interest lawyer, a native of Washington DC, and a poet. He has authored four books, including one 2020 Michigan Notable Book Recipient, come see about me, marvin (Wayne State University Press).
WSU Press writes “come see about me, marvin is accessible, honest poetry about and for real people. In the collection, Brian G. Gilmore seeks to invite the reader into a fantastical dialogue between himself and Marvin Gaye—two black men who were born in the nation’s capital, but who moved to the Midwest for professional ambitions. In trying to acclimate himself to a new job in a new place—a place that seemed so different from the home he had always known—Gilmore often looked to Marvin Gaye as an example for how to be. These poems were derived as a means of coping in a strange land.” (https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/come-see-about-me-marvin)
Another poetry collection by Gilmore, We Didn’t Know Any Gangsters, was nominated for the 2014 NAACP Image Award. A Cave Canem Fellow and Kimbilio Fellow, he is also a regular contributor to The Progressive Magazine. For more, check out his blog at Medium.
Register for the Brian Gilmore Speaker Series Event
Looking Ahead
March will be a jam-packed month of speaker series and workshop events with more fantastic guests. Stay tuned for updates! You can view the complete schedule here.
Special Thanks & Additional Info
We want to extend a big thank you to Native writers K’Ehleyr McNulty, Brenda Francis-Thomas, and John Boyd for sharing their poetry with our audience on February 1. To borrow from John Boyd, your words help us to “share with each other how we see each other and live in this world,” and we hope the best for you, your communities, and your words for years to come.
To Richard, Alice, and Kate, thank you for working to uplift and shine a brighter light on marginalized communities. The people you work with contribute powerful, beautiful, and important voices to our world, and we are grateful that you’ve shared some of those voices and experiences with us.
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Thank you to all who attended our other speaker series events with Richard Hoehler (1/18) and Alice Derry and Kate Reavey (2/1). We hope you’ll continue to join via Zoom us for all of our exciting (and free) upcoming events this season!
This activity is supported in part by Arts Midwest and the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs. Thanks to generous support from the Ohio Arts Council, Arts Midwest, and the National Endowment for the Arts, our Speaker Series is free through May 31, 2022.
For more on Richard Hoehler’s work with currently and formerly incarcerated folks, seehttps://www.richardhoehler.com/acting-out.
For more on Alice and Kate’s work with indigenous writers in the Olympic peninsula, see Peninsula Daily News (recent story:https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/entertainment/indigenous-writers-compete-in-poetry-slam/) and keep your eyes peeled for the third printing of Where Thunderbird Rests His Head and Waits for Songs of Return, a collection of poetry and prose by and about Native Americans on the North Olympic Peninsula.
For more by Brian Gilmore, see his author page at the African American Literature Book Club (AALBC) website.
Kellie Rankey holds a BA in Creative Writing from SVSU, where they currently remain a student. Their work has appeared inThe Normal School,Tiny Molecules, and theMichigan Sociological Review, and is forthcoming from Wrongdoing Magazine.