Black Voices Matter: Poetry Reading

Hosted by: Petit Branch Library – Onondaga County Public Library System

Black Voices Matter: Poetry Reading

In Collaboration with Underground Poetry Spot and Rae Angrand’s Invitational Poets

Saturday, February 13, at 2 p.m.

February is African American history month. But history is not just a collection of stories from our past; it is thousands of lives, uncountable lived experiences, and the cultural context that creates the world we live in today. History is being made, every day, by black people across the country in today’s civil rights movement: Black Lives Matter. Young people born into this cultural context have unique and important perspectives on their intersectional identities and struggles, but rarely are given voice to express it.

In times of fear and struggle, literature is one of our best tools to communicate complicated perspectives and emotions, to spread ideas, and to inspire empathy and compassion. To speak to the experience of being young and black in today’s world, and specifically in Syracuse, New York, are seven talented young poets: Kyle Tape, Simone Owens, Mariah Scott, Abigail Bogle, and Mic Tha Poet. They will be performing their work and engaging in the powerful art of spoken word poetry, connecting to a long history of black poets and revolutionaries who came before them.