U of A's Brown Chair in English Literacy Sponsors a Workshop with Alexis Pauline Gumbs

The poet is wearing white and wrapped in turquoise. The wind activates her wild majestic hair. Author photo appears next to the words "Open Mouth Collaborates A Workshop With Alexis Pauline Gumbs April 20, 22 Sponsored by the Brown Chair in English Literacy at the University of Arkansas" on a light blue background. The Open Mouth logo is behind the text. Logos for sponsors also appear. ASL interpretation is indicated by the interpreting hands logo.

The U of A's Brown Chair in English Literacy invites all community members to attend a virtual workshop with poet Alexis Pauline Gumbs at 5 p.m., Wednesday, April 20. The workshop is hosted by Fayetteville-based Open Mouth Literary Center and sponsored by the Brown Chair in English Literacy. This workshop is free and open to the public.

Gumbs, Ph.D., is a black feminist writer and scholar in Durham, North Carolina. Gumbs is the author of several books, most recently Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals and Dub: Finding Ceremony. Gumbs is the co-founder of Mobile Homecoming, an experiential archive amplifying Black LGBTQ brilliance. She is also the co-founder of the Black Feminist Bookmobile and the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Reading Room. Alexis is a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Awardee.

The workshop, based on Audre Lorde's poem "The Black Unicorn," will open opportunities for attendees to write about themselves as powerful mythical creatures. The workshop will take place virtually via Zoom with Zoom auto captions, and an ASL interpreter will be present. Access copies of poems and workshop materials will be made available to attendees via Google Docs.

If you have additional access needs or requests, please reach out to the Open Mouth team at openmouthreadings@gmail.com.

A Workshop with Alexis Pauline Gumbs

• Wednesday, April 20, at 5 p.m. CST
• Register

About the Open Mouth Reading Series: The Open Mouth Reading Series is a community-based poetry series located in Fayetteville, Arkansas, founded by poets M.D. Myers and Molly Bess Rector in October of 2015. A federal 501(c)(3) non-profit, Open Mouth works to enrich the Northwest Arkansas community through close contact with poetry and with poets from the larger literary world. Open Mouth hosts readings, workshops, a summer poetry retreat and an annual fall poetry festival. For more information about Open Mouth or to donate, visit openmouthliterary.org and sign up for the Open Mouth newsletter. Support for Open Mouth Literary Center is provided, in part, by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support comes from our supporters on Patreon, Mid-America Arts Alliance, and the ARt Connect Program. The ARt Connect program is generously supported by the Walmart Foundation and implemented by Mid-America Arts Alliance in partnership with the Creative Arkansas Community Hub & Exchange (CACHE) of the Northwest Arkansas Council. Additional support for Mid-America Arts Alliance is from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and foundations, corporations and individuals throughout Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.

About the Brown Chair in English Literacy: The Brown Chair in English Literacy Initiative at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, through support by the Brown Foundation and Walton Family Gift, supports and improves literacy throughout the state and beyond through community partnerships and programming efforts. For more information, visit the Brown Chair in English Literacy Initiative website.