For Immediate Release
Contact:
City Art Director Joel Long: joeltlong@yahoo.com
Brian Laidlaw, Ryan Jones, and Yolanda Franklin to read at City Art
Salt Lake Public Library Main Branch
210 East 400 South
Salt Lake City UT 84111
Wednesday October 17th , 7:00—8:00 P.M.
Poets Brian Laidlaw, Ryan Jones, and Yolanda Franklin visit
the City Public Library on Wednesday, October 17th at 7:00 PM. This event is
part of the City Art Reading Series.
A companion volume to Laidlaw’s 2015 project,
The Stuntman, The Mirrormaker fuses the stories of two fabled couples: the
mythical Narcissus and Echo, and Bob Dylan and Echo Star Helstrom, subject of
the song “Girl from the North Country.” But where The Stuntman focused on
Narcissus, The Mirrormaker takes its primary inspiration from Echo, drawing on
ecocritical readings of American history and interrogating the masculine logic
of resource extraction.
Brian Laidlaw is a poet, songwriter and educator
from Northern California. He earned an MFA in Poetry at the University of
Minnesota, and then joined the Songwriting faculty at McNally Smith College of
Music in St. Paul, MN Hisrecent releases include the
vinyl-LP-plus-poetry-chapbook AMORATORIUM (Paper Darts Press), the book/album
THE STUNTMAN (Milkweed Editions), and the 7” vinyl single JEREMIAD (Hymie’s
Vintage Records), as well as the forthcoming full-length collection THE
MIRRORMAKER (Milkweed Editions, 2018).
The organization of the Blood Vinyls as tracks,
with each track as a theme, illuminates these soulful, gorgeous,
intelligently-crafted poems, capturing the black South and womanhood so
intimately, and with such knowing — an edgy discography of Florida and the
contentions of gender and race in the South. Franklin understands, like Zora
Neale Hurston, how to pen intimate narratives that reveal a distinctive aspect
of southern history, and its customs stemming from the legacies of slavery and
beyond.
Yolanda J. Franklin is a Cave Canem and Callaloo
Fellow, a recipient of a 2016-2017 McKnight Dissertation Fellowship and a
Kingsbury writing award. Franklin is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Florida
Agricultural & Mechanical University. Her poems appear in the current issue
or are forthcoming in the following journals: Hayden’s Ferry Review, Southern
Humanities Review, and the Apalachee Review. Her poetry also appears in the
recent anthology “It Was Written: Poetry Inspired by Hip-Hop” and is a two-time
recipient of a J.M. Shaw Academy of American Poets Award. Franklin is a third
generation Floridian, born in the state’s capital — Tallahassee. She loves
dancing to old school hip-hop, baking, food tasting, and can be found at her
favorite coffee shop, Black Dog Café in Railroad Square enjoying a drink the
baristas named after her.
Ryan Jones began performing spoken word in 2012
after joining the B.L.A.C.K Poets in Macon, GA. After entering and winning his
first competitive poetry slam that same year (Bad Mamma Jamma Slam, Hosted by
A.A.C. in Milledgeville), Ryan helped to lead Mercer University's inaugural
poetry slam team to the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational in 2015, where
they placed 20th in the nation for collegiate spoken word. In 2016, Ryan led
Mercer University's team back to C.U.P.S.I. as an assistant coach and team
poet. In 2017, Ryan represented the Java Monkey Slam Team in Atlanta, GA at the
National Poetry Slam in Denver, Colorado. Ryan also competed in the Individual
World Poetry Slam in 2017, and competed in and won the TedX Peachtree Poetry
Slam the same year. In 2018, Ryan became a Cave Canem Fellow, and also won the
Art Amok Grand Slam Finals, making him the 2018 Art Amok Slam Champion.
In November 2016, Ryan founded Homegrown Poetry,
a spoken word outlet dedicated to uplifting and showcasing both adult and youth
spoken word artists in the Atlanta area. Ryan is currently based in Atlanta, GA
and is dedicated to community and youth outreach through Spoken Word and other
performative arts.
This event was made possible with support from
The City Library, City Art, and Utah Humanities.
Most featured readings are followed by an open reading.
The event is free and open to the public. City Art is sponsored by the Utah Arts Council, the Salt Lake City Arts Council, Zoo, Arts, and Parks, X-mission, and audience donations.