Politics and Poetry- featuring Kyle Dargan & Amanda Johnston: Oct 24

Saturday, October 24th, 5:30-7pm
Poetry & Politics Reading + Open Mic
Featuring Kyle Dargan & Amanda Johnston

Join us for an evening of politically charged poetry and spoken word! We have two featured poets and also time for approximately 30 minutes of open mic expression. 

In this his fourth collection of poetry, Honest Engine, award-winning poet Kyle Dargan examines the mechanics of the heart and mind as they are weathered by loss. He is unafraid to grapple with loss and mortality in a radically honest way and amid this processing of mortality, it becomes clear that he has arrived at a turning point as a writer and a man.

Honest Engine is unafraid. It asks questions that men rarely ask: Is there a cure for patriarchy? Must I also think like a fist? Will grief and loss swamp us? Sometimes, true, with the poet we wrestle despair, 'tumbling from an apex of grace.' But memory can restore, can 'make enough flames bloom.' Indeed, Kyle Dargan's stunning, hurting poems bring us finally to a wary hopefulness that we might begin, at last, to reach across our divisions, racial and otherwise. (Sarah Browning executive director of Split This Rock and author of Whiskey in the Garden of Eden)

Amanda Johnston earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. Her poetry and interviews have appeared in numerous online and print publications, among them, The Drunken Boat, Small Batch, New Literati, Pluck and the anthologies, di-ver-city and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. In 2014, she published two chapbooks: Guap and Lock & Key. The recipient of multiple Artist Enrichment grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women and the Christina Sergeyevna Award from the Austin International Poetry Festival, she is a member of the Affrilachian Poets and a Cave Canem graduate fellow. She has served on the board of directors for the National Women's Alliance, the Kentucky Women Writers Conference, is the founder and executive director of Torch Literary Arts, and one of the lead organizers of Black Poets Speak Out, a campaign that unites poets and allies to speak out against police violence. Currently, she serves as the retreat coordinator for Cave Canem Foundation and is a Badgerdog teaching artist. Visit her website: www.amandajohnston.com

Event date: 
Saturday, October 24, 2015 - 5:30pm to 7:00pm
Event address: 
5501 North Lamar #A-105
Austin, TX 78751