By R.D. Pohl

Thursday, 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.: Lit Garden Writers Poetry reading featuring Joseph Chamberlain, Lynn Ciesielski, Michael Delaney, Donna Grace, George Grace, Joe Todaro, Scott W. Williams and Kate Willoughby. Fitz Books & Waffles, 433 Ellicott St., Buffalo.

Friday, 6:30 p.m.: Readings and a book launch party for Amy De’Ath‘s new collection of poems Not a Force of Nature published by Futurepoem Books. Joining De’Ath will be special guest readers Trish Salah and Bianca Rae Messinger.

About the poets:

• Amy De’Ath teaches contemporary literature, culture, and theory at King’s College London. Her critical book, Behind Our Backs: Feminized Poetry and Capitalist Abstraction, proposes a new way of reading poetry based on Marx’s critique of value. She is the author of several short poetry books, including Lower Parallel (Barque Press, London), and ON MY LOVE FOR gender abolition (Capricious, NY), and with Fred Wah, editor of a poetics anthology, Towards. Some. Air. (Banff Centre Press). Not a Force of Nature is her first full-length collection.
  
• Trish Salah lives and writes in Tkaronto and is associate professor of Gender Studies at Queen’s University, in traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Territory. She is the author of Wanting in Arabic, which won a Lambda Literary Award, and Lyric Sexology, Vol. 1. A Pushcart-nominated poet, she has work in recent issues of Mizna and Tripwire, and We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics. She edits the Journal of Critical Race Inquiry, and is co-editor of special issues of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, on cultural production, and Arc Poetry Magazine, showcasing trans, Two-Spirit and non-binary writers.
  
• Bianca Rae Messinger is a poet and translator living and working in Buffalo, N.Y. She is the author of the long poem The Land Was V There (Poetry Will Be Made By All, 2014) and the chapbook The Love of God (Inpatient Press, 2016). Her chapbook parallel bars was the winner of the 2021 Center for Book Arts Chapbook Prize. Her translations of South American authors have been published for the Berlin Bienniale, Monster House Press, among others. She writes for ramona (Buenos Aires)
  
  Fitz Books & Waffles, 433 Ellicott St., Buffalo.
  

Saturday, 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.: Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Silo City Reading Series presents poets Megan Fernandes and Diana Cao, winner of the 2024 Just Buffalo Poetry Fellowship; along with a musical performance by DJ B-Cutz and flutist Dayatra Amber; and a choreographed roller skating and visual art installation curated by Barrett Gordon (The WASH Project), in collaboration with DJ Carr, Mandela Huff, Drew Huff (unrelated) and Aye Thant.

About the artists:

• MEGAN FERNANDES is a South Asian American writer living in NYC. She was born in Canada and raised in the Philadelphia area. Her family are East African Goans. She is the author of The Kingdom and After (Tightrope Books, 2015) and Good Boys (Tin House, 2020). Her third book of poetry, I Do Everything I’m Told (Tin House, 2023), was published in summer 2023. Her poems have been published in The New Yorker, Kenyon Review, The American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, The Common, and The Academy of American Poets, among others. Fernandes is an Associate Professor of English and the Writer-in-Residence at Lafayette College, where she teaches courses on poetry, creative nonfiction, and critical theory. She holds a PhD in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an MFA in poetry from Boston University.
  
• DIANA CAO is a writer whose poetry and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, The Threepenny Review, The Georgia Review, and elsewhere. She has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and International Literary Seminars, and she is a winner of Nimrod International‘s 2023 Neruda Prize. Her first chapbook, Relational, is the winner of Sixth Finch’s annual chapbook contest.
  
• DJ B-CUTZ (Brandon Mollet) is influenced by the work of DJ Jazzy Jeff, Kid Capri, DJ Puffy, and Buffalo’s own skate DJ and WUFO DJ, Ready Robb. Working in music retail for eight years, currently as a customer service manager, Brandon loves every aspect of music, from equipment to production. He aspires to own his own sound company. Father of three—best thing in the world.
  
• DAYATRA AMBER was born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., and continues to call Buffalo home. An artist and an activist, Dayatra is a proud mother of three. She is an actor, musician, and poet, as well as published author.
  
  Dayatra consistently serves community through organizing, teaching and building community around Cultural Arts, Mental Health and Social Determinants of Health.
  
  A USMC veteran, you can find Dayatra in a classroom, community center, park, stage or event inviting others to themselves through Radical Self-Love. Radical Self-Love is a series of workshops she created to assist in connecting ourselves with healing the wounds that prevent us from living our best lives.
  
• DJ CARR is a self-taught artist from Buffalo, N.Y., specializing in portraiture, documentary and street photography. Derrick started shooting digital photography about 12 years ago, and transitioned fully into film photography in 2020. He is inspired by Gordon Parks and his way of documenting and capturing the stories of marginalized people within the inner city. Derrick’s focus often falls on those same subjects, capturing the essence of the moment and revealing the truth within.
  
  In May of 2021, he was the inaugural solo exhibitor at the new space for The Buffalo Institute of Contemporary Art (BICA), highlighting life on the westside of Buffalo. In the following years, DJ worked with Time Magazine, The New York Times, Bloomberg Business Week, WIVB Channel 4 News, Paramount Motion Pictures, BET, and more.
  
• MANDELA HUFF is a father, owner and creative director of his own company, head of set design at Legacy House Studio, and an avid skater. Skating led him to discover an insurmountable number of things about himself and opened new doors to friendships he will cherish for a lifetime.
  
• DREW HUFF was born and raised in Buffalo. He has always been interested in joining the art space as a creative. In 2023, he taught himself how to create rugs. Through his newfound craft, he’s created multiple art pieces that range from portraits to scenes from manga and anime. He wants to show people that art comes in a variety of different unexpected forms.
  
• AYE MIN THANT, originally from Myanmar (Burma) considers Buffalo her second home. She received a Bachelor in Art and Letters from SUNY Buffalo State College, and received he Hyatt’s Award for Excellence in Sculpture. Aye has worked as teaching assistant at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and The WASH Project, High School Program Coordinator, Community Development Assistant at Westminster Economic Development Initiative, and Academic Support Specialist at Cradle Beach (Project S.O.A.R.).
  
  Aye is fluent in Burmese and an active member of the larger Burmese community in Buffalo. She has also received a Certificate in Community Health Worker Training from Community Network for Engagement, Connection and Transformation (CoNECT) in partnership with the D’Youville Pathways Program.

Silo City Reading Series events take place in Marine A grain elevator, behind Duende at Silo City, 85 Silo City Row. Doors open at 7 p.m., and the events begin at 7:30 p.m. Books by featured poets in the series will be available for purchase by Buffalo bookseller Fitz Books. As of August 26th, the event is sold out. Contact www.justbuffalo.org for further information.