Western's English and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Departments Celebrate National Poetry Month with Virtual Event

Western's English and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies departments will celebrate National Poetry Month with a virtual event featuring award-winning poet Anastacia-Reneé at 5 p.m. Thursday, April 22.

Anastacia-Reneé  is a writer, educator, interdisciplinary artist, TEDx speaker and podcaster. She is a 2020 Arc Fellow (4Culture) and Jack Straw Curator. Renee is the recipient of the James W. Ray Distinguished Artist Award for Washington Artists (2018), Seattle's Civic Poet (2017-2019), and Poet-in-Residence at Hugo House (2015-2017). Reneé has received fellowships and residencies from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, VONA, Ragdale, Mineral School, and The New Orleans Writers Residency. Her poems and essays have been anthologized in: Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry, Spirited Stone: Lessons from Kubota’s Garden, and Seismic: Seattle City of Literature. Her poetry and fiction have appeared in: Spark, Foglifter, Auburn Avenue, Catapult, Alta, Torch, and many more. Renee's solo art exhibition, "(Don't Be Absurd) Alice in Parts" is currently on view at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, until April 25, 2021.

Rooted in Black feminist traditions, Reneé's poetry and art speaks to the terror of white supremacy, ancestral power, Black joy, and collective liberation. A "queer super-shero of color," Reneé  currently has a solo exhibition at the Frye Art Museum, which features poetry, video, art installations, and audio tracks: "Through her writing, performances, and installations, Anastacia-Reneé counteracts the erasure of marginalized identities in American society with an unflinching gaze directed toward collective liberation. She plumbs the depths of everyday experiences and emotions, charting the messy intricacies and difficulties that too often go unspoken as a way of transforming silence into language and action." This event will also feature Lana Winborn, a current M.A. graduate student at Western. Lana specializes in theories of Black spectatorship in media by Black artists using felt experiences; she is also a poet, filmmaker, and hybrid artist. Poet and professor Jane Wong will host. 

Anyone interested in attending can register for the Zoom event.

Contact for details: jane.wong@wwu.edu.