The East Side Freedom Library invites you to “Women From the Center Writers: Poetry in Action” with special guest Taiyon J. Coleman on Thursday, November 9 @ 7:00PM.

Please join us for a night of powerful poetry with Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen, Jna Shelomith, and Taiyon J. Coleman.

ANH-HOA THI NGUYEN is a poet, community artist, activist and educator. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College where she was awarded the Mary Merrit Henry Prize in Poetry and the Ardella Mills Literary Composition Prize in Creative Non-Fiction. In addition to literary journals, her publications include the Vietnamese Artists Collective anthology “AS IS: A Collection of Visual and Literary Works by Vietnamese American Artists,” the Asian American Women Artists Association anthology “Cheers to Muses: Contemporary Works by Asian American Women” and “Troubling Borders, An Anthology of Art and Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora.” Anh-Hoa is the founder of Pomelo Press, and creates self-published and hand bound artists books. Anh-Hoa has been an Artist-in-Residence at the de Young Museum and a Writers-in-Residence at Hedgebrook. She has received a writing fellowship from the Elizabeth George Foundation and a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant.

With roots stretching from North Africa and Eastern Europe, JNA SHELOMITH comes from a 6,000 year tradition of using poetry to tell important news. Jna’s first demonstration was at age 3, holding a picket line with her mom. She’s been a Riot Grrrl guitarist, street-based outreach worker to homeless youth, and grew up in New York City. Reading poetry around town for many years, Jna is a core member of Mizna’s writing collective and is also on the their Board. As a Mizrachi badass, Jna brings her passion for equity, healing and justice to her paid work in local government.

TAIYON J. COLEMAN is a poet, essayist, and teacher. Taiyon is a Cave Canem fellow, and her writing has appeared in Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Riding Shotgun: Women Writing about Their Mothers, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South edited by Nikky Finney, Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota, and her critical essay, “Disparate Impacts: Living Just Enough for the City,” appears in the 2016 anthology, A Good Time for the Truth, edited by Sun Yung Shin. Her article, “The Risky Business of Engaging Racial Equity in Writing Instruction: A Tragedy in Five Acts” published in TETYC in 2016 was recently awarded the 2017 Mark Reynolds TETYC Best Article Award for 2017.  Taiyon J Coleman is Assistant Professor of English Literature with a focus in American Multicultural Literature at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Free and Open to All. East Side Freedom Library, 1105 Greenbrier Street, Saint Paul, MN 55106. [email protected]   and   651-230-3294