U35 is a bi-monthly reading series for poets under 35, held once each January, March, May, July, September, and November. The series seeks to promote and bolster young Massachusetts poets while giving them a venue to share their work and connect with other poets. If you are a poet under the age of 35, sign up to read via Mass Poetry’s website!
http://www.masspoetry.org/u35
Our July readers are Wendy Chen, Kat Hobbs-Everett, and Amy Manion. Read more about them below:
Wendy Chen (wendychenart.com) is the author of Unearthings (Tavern Books), editor of Figure 1, and managing editor of Tupelo Quarterly. She is the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Most Promising Young Poet Prize, and fellowships from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Her forthcoming translations of the poems of the Song dynasty writer Li Qingzhao will be published later this year under the title The Magpie at Night (Tavern Books). Chen earned her MFA in poetry from Syracuse University and is currently working on a novel.
Kat Hobbs-Everett is a constructive deconstructionist. Anti-racist, poet, teacher, social justice advocate and community mobilizer. She attended UMASS Boston and has spent 23 years working in the human/social services field. Her areas of expertise include youth work, child welfare, trauma, addictions, mental health, social emotional learning, family engagement, equity, and challenge bias power and privilege to promote diversity and inclusion. Currently Kat runs a nonprofit with the love of her life Dennis, named Power of Self-Education (POSE) Inc. and she recently launched a cultural community center in Haverhill, MA called COCO Brown. She is also mom to 7, a Christian and a Capricorn. Kat has spent the past 7 years studying the correlation between sexuality and spirituality, she is in the process of using her research to finish her book A New Creation.
Amy Manion is a Boston-born Irish and Chinese girl just trying to make it in this world. She writes because she needs to and wants to. She writes to speak her truth and to express her voice in hopes that it will encourage others, especially Asian American women, to do the same. Amy was recently a semifinalist for GrubStreet’s Emerging Writer Fellowship in Boston. She has been a Photovoice participant as a member of a collective group of young adults in mental health recovery trying to educate peers, mental health providers, and the public about their experiences through photographs coupled with the written word. She has also had some of her work featured in mental health publications.