Buffalo Area Poetry & Literature Calendar (April 27 to May 2)
In Gratitude sessions with Joshua Thermidor and Jillian Hanesworth and the book launch celebration for Joe Hall’s Buffalo Free Rapid Transit happen this week.
Tuesday, April 28, 7 p.m. to 8:45 pm: Burning Books presents its monthly heARTBurn Civic Arts meet-up, curated and hosted by poet, teaching artist, and activist Robin Jordan.
Location: Burning Books, 420 Connecticut St., Buffalo, NY. Free and open to the public.
Wednesday, April 29, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.: Reading & Discussion: Ross Gay’s Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude With poet and photographer Joshua Thermidor.
Just Buffalo Literary Center presents an evening dedicated to “serious noticing.” As part of their city-wide In Gratitude project, poet and teaching artist Joshua Thermidor will lead a discussion into Ross Gay’s National Book Critics Circle Award-winning collection, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. Whether you are a lifelong reader of Gay’s work or picking up the book for the first time, we will explore Gay’s open-hearted, lyrical lines and discuss how the simple act of naming our delights can become a radical tool for connection.
About the Teaching Artist
Joshua Thermidor is a writer and visual artist of the Haitian diaspora who believes in the dissolution of empire and the total liberation of all oppressed people.
His photographs have appeared in TIME, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and NBC News. His poems and prose have appeared in River Styx, The Seventh Wave, Spotlights: Habibi Funk Print and elsewhere.He currently serves as Editor of Creative Nonfiction at Brink Literary and is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Location: Duende at Silo City
85 Silo City Row Buffalo, NY 14203
Website:
First 5 people to register receive a free copy of Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. Copies of Ross Gay’s books can be found at independent bookstores across Buffalo.
Friday, May 1, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.: In Gratitude Pop-up with poet Jillian Hanesworth. Join Buffalo’s first poet laureate Jillian Hanesworth at the Buffalo AKG art Museum’s Town Square for some reflection and writing.
As part of Just Buffalo Literary Center’s city-wide In Gratitude initiative, this session invites you to slow down and compose your own reflections in a shared creative space. Participants are encouraged to contribute their writing to our community “In Gratitude” boxes—including the one that will be on-site at the Buffalo AKG Aty Museum.
About the poet
Jillian Hanesworth is inaugural Poet Laureate of Buffalo, NY, a community organizer, author and award winning spoken word artist. She was born and raised on the East side of Buffalo, NY where she discovered and honed in on her passion for art and literature. Jillian began writing at the age of 7, when she would write songs for her mother to sing in church. Currently, Jillian is a teaching artist as well as the founder of Literary Freedom, LLC where she uses spoken word and literacy access to empower communities to create and demand sustainable change.
Buffalo AKG Art Museum
1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York 14222
Website:
Friday, May 1, 7:30 p.m.: Fitz Books & Waffles will host the Book Release Party for Joe Hall’s new full-length collection of poems, Buffalo Free Rapid Transit (Black Ocean Books, 2026) with friends and artists Patrick Cray, Amy De’Ath, Jake Reber, and Cheryl Quimba reading and/or performing in celebration of the book launch.
About The Poet
Joe Hall is the author of six books: Buffalo Free Rapid Transit (Black Ocean, 2026); People Finder, Buffalo (Cloak, 2024); Fugue and Strike (Black Ocean, 2023); Someone’s Utopia (Black Ocean, 2018); The Devotional Poems (Black Ocean, 2013); and Pigafetta Is My Wife (Black Ocean, 2010).
With Chad Hardy, he co-authored The Container Store Vols I & II (2012). With Cheryl Quimba, he co-authored the chapbook May I Softly Walk (2014). Hall has performed and delivered talks nationally at universities, living rooms, squats, and/or rivers in most of the 50 states as well as Canada and Washington, DC. He participates in Hostile Books, a publishing collective dedicated to radical materiality, with Ryan Kaveh Sheldon and Angela Veronica Wong.
Hall is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at St. Bonaventure University. He has taught community based creative writing workshops through the Worker Center in Buffalo and Just Buffalo Literary Center. His college teaching experience includes all levels of undergraduate creative writing and environmental literature. He is frequently amazed by his students.
In 2018, Hall received a PhD in Literature from the University at Buffalo, SUNY upon completion of his dissertation on liquid commons in eighteenth-century literature. The Journal of Post Colonial Studies and Eighteenth-Century Fiction have published his articles on literature, water, waste, and imperialism. His essays and reviews have appeared in Annulet, Terrain.org, The Colorado Review, and Fence Digital. His current research project involves settler colonial aesthetics in modern American ecopoetics.
Related Posts
