Loutit District Library, The Bookman, C3 – West Michigan’s Inclusive Spiritual Connection, and Spring Lake District Library are excited to present “Poetic Voices Of Detroit.” This special event will feature two public readings by award winning Detroit based poets Nandi Comer, Sonya Marie Pouncy, and Willie Williams.

NANDI COMER received a joint MFA/MA in Poetry and African American and African Diaspora Studies at Indiana University. She has received fellowships from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Cave Canem, Vermont Studio Center, and Virginia Center for the Arts. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in To Light a Fire: 20 Years with the InsideOut Literary Arts Project, Detroit Anthology, Crab Orchard Review, Green Mountains Review, Pluck!, Prairie Schooner, and Southern Indiana Review. She is a recipient of a 2016 Write A House Permanent Residency in Detroit award. Nandi will read from her forthcoming chapbook American Family: A Syndrome a series of poems that examines the history of race, mental and physical illness in America. Through clinical descriptions some of the poems highlight the disturbing reality of race as a social construct while lyrical work seeks to unearth the complexities illness and treatment.

SONYA MARIE POUNCY is a Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop Fellow and holds a Master of Arts in Creative Writing from Central Michigan University.  Her work has appeared in Callaloo, Temenos, the Central Review, Aunt Chloe: A Journal of Artful Candor; and Drum Voices Revue; as well as the anthologies Poet in the House; Abandon Automobile; and Eclipsing A Nappy New Millennium. She was a Broadside Press poet-in-residence for the Detroit Public Library and an InsideOut poet-in-residence for the Detroit Public School District. Currently, Sonya is working on a collection of poems about the life of Mrs. Henrietta Lacks, progenitor of the immortal HeLa cell line. She will read from this work in progress.

WILLIE WILLIAMS has served as a Broadside Press poet-in-residence at the Jefferson and Chandler Park branches of the Detroit Public Library and is a former director of the Broadside Press Poets’ Theater. His poetry has appeared in various anthologies including HIPology, Poet in the House, and Abandon Automobile. New work from Mr. Williams is forthcoming in the much anticipated Heaven Was Detroit.  Willie is also an editor, a photographer and a life-long Detroiter. In honor of National Poetry Month, Willie will read from his developing collection of poems about women poets who have inspired him over the years.

The three visiting poets will offer a public reading at Loutit District Library at 7:00pm on Thursday, April 27th. On Friday, April 28^th, they will visit Reeths Puffer Schools for an event with students, followed by a lunchtime public reading at Spring Lake District Library at 12:30pm the same afternoon. The two library events are free and open to everyone.

For more information please call Loutit District Library, The Bookman, C3 – West Michigan’s Inclusive Spiritual Connection, or Spring Lake District Library or visit their websites.