What we’ve been waiting all year for! Come join the PO Box Collective in screen printing, gathering, and refreshment sharing as we celebrate and support the community!
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Black August Community Event
Join a coalition of community organizers who are engaged in revolutionary work, for a family-friendly community event celebrating Black and Trans Resistance!
We are uniting to pay tribute to the true heroes, martyrs, and history of our ongoing struggle for liberation.
What to expect:
◦ dynamic political education about our history, our struggle
◦ beautiful cultural performances from some of our most talented�community members
◦ family and kid-friendly activities
◦ radical TDOR art walk
◦ memorial alter and vigil
◦
And FREE FOOD from Bumbu Roux!!
PO Box Poetry Reading Series
This popular monthly event features in-person readings with local poets.
The August reading features Helene Achanzar, Francesca Kritikos, and Phoebe Pan.
This event is FREE and open to the public!
Keep our People Free, Keep our Families Together
Join the Children’s Best Interest Project to learn:
- Why it’s important to prevent parental incarceration and child-parent separation
- How the Children’s Best Interest Act helps
- What is the role of Family Impact Statements
- How community members can have a role in participatory defense and spread the word about this new law
We will hear from Joanne Archibald, a formerly incarcerated mother, about her son’s experience; and from Gail Smith, an attorney working with defense lawyers to prevent parental incarceration.
PO Box Poetry Reading Series
This popular monthly event features in-person readings with local poets.
The July reading features Ari Banias, Mar Garcia & Mitch Monroy.
This event is FREE and open to the public!
Let This Radicalize You – Kelly Hayes reading & signing
Join us to celebrate the release of “Let This Radicalize You,” by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba! Special guest and co-author Kelly Hayes will be there to read from the book and sign copies.
Let This Radicalize You is a practical and imaginative resource for activists and organizers building power in an era of destabilization and catastrophe. The book is intended to aid and empower activists and organizers as they attempt to map their own journeys through the work of justice-making.
Co-author Kelly Hayes is a Menominee author, organizer, movement educator, and photographer. She is also the host of Truthout’s podcast Movement Memos. Hayes is a cofounder of the Lifted Voices collective and the Chicago Light Brigade.
Know Your Rights Training for Tenants
Join us for this FREE Tenants Rights workshop facilitated by Uptown People’s Law Center.
Learn your rights about repairs, renting with a record, and other issues. ***BRING YOUR LEASE***
FERTILE FUTURES Talking Circle
Restorative Justice practitioner, teaching artist and Abolitionist Jenny Viets will lead a talking circle with PO Box Collective Artist-in-Residence Molly Costello.
This is a SIGN-UP FORM for the Talking Circle. We are capping this event at 15 people. Please please let us know if you can no longer make this gathering so we can let those on the waiting list know.
About this Gathering
Art is often a gateway to meaningful and moving conversation. Join Molly Costello and facilitator Jennifer Viets for a guided conversation allowing participants to respond to a theme in Molly’s works. Enjoy the opportunity gather, to share, listen and to learn from and with one another.
About Talking Circles
Talking Circles are one of the practices used in Restorative Justice/Restorative Practices. The Circle involves a ritual opening, and the establishment of Guidelines and Values. Circle values often include empathy, compassion, honesty and confidentiality. The Circle-keeper creates a plan around a theme and asks “rounds” of questions which act as prompts for sharing. We will pass a talking piece and speak one at a time without interruption. No one is required to share and the Circle is as deep as the participants choose to make it.
This is not a meeting. It is voluntary. It is an opportunity to share in a safer/braver space. Participation in Circle hopefully leads to a greater sense of personal well-being and support while challenging us to think more deeply.
Accessibility + COVID Safety
The P.O. Box Collective is located at street level and is accessible by ramp and has an accessible bathroom. We will be sitting in chairs in a circle.
MASKS ARE REQUIRED while inside the P.O. Box space. We will also have air filtration systems running. We kindly ask that if you are not feeling well that you please stay home.
Generative Drawing Workshop with Molly Costello
PO Box Artist-in-Residence Molly Costello is facilitating this registration-only workshop in generative drawing: a social space to practice your creative skills and expand your imagination.
REGISTRATION FULL.
Poetry off the Shelf: CM Burroughs, Camille Roy & Syd Staiti
Join us in-person for a special reading with CM Burroughs, Camille Roy, and Syd Staiti, hosted at the PO Box by the Poetry Foundation.
CM Burroughs is an associate professor of creative writing at Columbia College Chicago and author of The Vital System and Master Suffering, which was long-listed for the National Book Award and a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and a Los Angeles Times Book Award. Burroughs’s poetry has appeared in journals and anthologies including Poetry, Ploughshares, Gathering Ground, and Best American Experimental Writing. Burroughs has been awarded fellowships and grants from Yaddo, MacDowell, Djerassi Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Cave Canem Foundation.
Camille Roy is a writer of fiction, poetry, and plays. Roy’s fiction collection Honey Mine was published in 2021. Her other works include Sherwood Forest, Swarm, and The Rosy Medallions, and the plays Cheap Speech and Cold Heaven. She co-edited Biting The Error: Writers Explore Narrative. Recently her work has been published in Amerarcana and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art blog, Open Space.
Syd Staiti is the author of Seldom Approaches and The Undying Present. Staiti’s work has been published in Baest, Tripwire, Social Text, and A Perfect Vacuum. Staiti is the director of Small Press Traffic and a collective member of Light Field.
The Poetry Foundation’s events are completely free of charge and open to the public. This event will include ASL interpretation. Masks are required. Please note that some performers may choose to perform without a mask. For more information about accessibility, please contact [email protected].