The Green Way Reading Series is a monthly literary event based in Takoma Park, MD curated by Elizabeth Bryant and Takoma Park’s Poet Laureate Taylor Johnson. The series centers emerging and established poets and artists in interdisciplinary, intergenerational and cross-regional dialogues. We want these programs to encourage growing participation and local engagement in the evolving landscape of contemporary poetry. The intention is to bring something new to this area with offerings that provide a space for horizontal community building, the generation of new work, and the amplification of local poets. The series is made possible by generous support from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Maryland State Arts Council, in addition to our collaboration with Takoma Park’s People’s Book. The space is open from 5:00 – 7:00 pm, readings begin at 5:30 pm. We hope that you can join!
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is an African American writer, poet, artist, and educator who works at the intersection of computation, AI, race, and gender. They are the author of Travesty Generator (Noemi Press), a book of computational poetry that received the Poetry Society of America’s 2020 Anna Rabinowitz prize for interdisciplinary work and longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry. They are the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship. Their other poetry books include How Narrow My Escapes (DIAGRAM/New Michigan), Personal Science (Tupelo Press), a slice from the cake made of air (Red Hen Press), and But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise (Red Hen Press). Their fifth book, Negative Money, is available now. They direct the MFA in creative writing program at the University of Maryland. Their new chapbook, written with AI, is called A Black Story May Contain Sensitive Content and won the 2023 Diagram/New Michigan chapbook contest.
Justin Phillip Reed is an American writer and amateur bass guitarist whose preoccupations include horror cinema, ideological failure, and uses of the grotesque. He is the author of two poetry collections, The Malevolent Volume (2020) and Indecency (2018), both published by Coffee House Press. His hybrid collection, With Bloom Upon Them And Also With Blood: A Horror Miscellany, will be released in fall 2023. Born and raised in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina, he participates in alternative rock music cultures, ogles Toyota Tacomas, and enjoys smelling like outside. His current favorite band is Oklahoma City’s Chat Pile.
Simon Shieh is a Taiwanese American poet. He is the author of Master (Sarabande Books) and the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. Simon’s poems and essays can be found in POETRY, American Poetry Review, Guernica, Best New Poets, and The Yale Review, among others. Simon co-founded Spittoon Literary Magazine (spittoonlitmag.com) which translates and publishes the best contemporary Chinese writers. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Charlotte, and their dog, Momo.
